Happy New Year!

Just to let you know we didn't fall off the face of the earth; we wish you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2009! May it be a year filled with joy, laughter and happy moments for you and everyone around you. I still didn't send out any Christmas or New Years cards, so I'm now thinking about turning them into change-of-address cards (since we didn't get those out yet either ...).

We ended 2008 with parties, dinners and visits from friends and relatives. The two Christmas Holiday weeks were quite busy weeks, so not very much time for postings. But, with all that behind us, this week I hope to find the time to post some pics of our recent 'adventures'. The most recent being the current spell of cold weather; it snowed Sunday night and the whiteness is still there, due to the low temperatures. Coldest temp measured in the south of the country was -21 degrees C! Here, the mercury didn't go below -12 degrees C. Still, pretty good for our first winter back in Holland. Pics will follow.

Emma's birthday and more

Emma's birthday invitations using her own art work

On Wednesday, Emma had her kids birthday party. It was our first Dutch kids birthday party and it was a big success. I think I was more nervous about it then Emma was, but fortunately I had my sister and mom to assist me. First, Emma handed out birthday treats in school. Usually, those treats are packaged in some fun or decorative way. So that's what I did. It took me a bit longer then I anticipated, but the result (especially Emma's face when she saw it the next morning) was worth it.
Tree of treats (takes about 4 hours to complete)

Detail of Emma's birthday treat

After school, we took all six invitees home for a pancake lunch (thanks Pieter!), some creative activity and some games. That afternoon, I experienced something all mothers (apparently) experience when organizing a kids birthday party; despite all your careful preparations, things never go the way you planned them. For me, it was a surprise how quickly the kids went through the planned activities and games! Lunch was over after about twenty minutes (iso 45 min), the DIY photo frames took only half an hour (iso 1 hour) to finish etc. Fortunately, they were okay just playing with our toys in between the organized parts ... Unwrapping the gifts and eating the cake provided the much needed quiet moments of the afternoon. I was quite happy to see the mothers come at 3.30 pm sharp to pick them all up :-) But, hearing Emma say that this was her BEST birthday EVER, definitely made up for all the hard work.
Birthday girl and her guests

On Thursday, Emma and Janne had an early Christmas dinner at school. Each classroom was festively decorated and from 5 until 6.30 pm, the kids were having (tomato) soup and sausage rolls. You could tell that some teachers really put a lot of effort in preparing and decorating their classroom. Janne's classroom for example looked really nice and special.
A very festive Christmas table in Janne's classroom

Janne with one of her teachers

Both Emma and Janne really enjoyed having this 'formal' Christmas dinner without their parents. Pieter and me used this free time to go out for dinner ourselves. We all had a good time :-)
Emma with one of her teachers

Pakjesavond

Emma and Janne apparently were very good girls this year, because Sinterklaas brought many great gifts on Friday, the eve of his birthday. At about 6 pm, someone (Black Peter?) nocked on the window very loudly, which startled us all. Emma quickly opened the curtains, but was too late to see Sinterklaas' black helper. When Janne opened the front door, a bag full of gifts was standing on our doorstep!
A bag full of presents from Sinterklaas

If we would have let them, Emma and Janne would have opened all the presents there and then :-) Instead, we had them open them inside, one present after another. Still, they unwrapped all gifts in the record time of about fifteen minutes ... The next day, we literally didn't do anything but play with all the new toys.
Hurry, hurry; there's more presents to unwrap

Sunday, we went to oma, to celebrate her 78th birthday. And what a surprise when we saw that Sinterklaas also delivered gifts for Emma and Janne at oma's house! Another fifteen minutes of frantically unwrapping presents were followed by cries of excitement, jumps for joy and requests for help (to take the packages off all the new toys). At the end of the afternoon we had a fun and delicious meal at the local 'Tasty Wok' restaurant with my mom and my sister and her family.
Look mom, Sinterklaas was here as well!

All (or at least most) of the gifts were real hits, so Sinterklaas did a great job at selecting presents once again. And now, after three weeks of excitement and anticipation, Sinterklaas is finally over ... Emma and Janne, as most kids in the Netherlands, will need a few good nights sleep to recover from it :-) Family dinner at the Tasty Wok

Colourfull faces

Two Zwarte Pietjes

This weeked, Emma and Janne got to meet Sinterklaas in person and even received their first Sinterklaas gift. Great excitement all Saturday long, also because we grease-painted the girls as Black Peters. It was very nice that Sinterklaas was so well informed about all the kids, so the meet-and-greet met all expectations :-)
Have you been good this year ...?

On Sunday, we went to the local mall for lunch and to our surprise, there were also a lot of Black Peters running around. That was a nice extra for the girls. To top it off, there were make-up artists at the mall, who grease-painted the kids. The lady did a great job and it was worth the long wait. Our pretty little cats

2nd snow this year!

Yesterday and today, it snowed in Holland. Emma and Janne were VERY excited and played out in the snow on both days. Yesterday, they could play with two friends, because our Taiwan friends Florence and Thomas visited us from Belgium with their three boys. We spent a leisurely Saturday, eating, drinking, chatting and even taking a short walk through the neighborhood. The little town we live in is not very exciting, but it is VERY Dutch and therefore worth showing 'foreign' friends :-) Admitted, it's a bit less spectacular than Brussels ...

Fun for four in the fresh snow on Saturday

Janne enjoying the snow on Sunday

Emma is having fun as well

The weekend before, the most exciting thing of this season happened; Sinterklaas arrived in Holland and he even visited our own town of Veldhoven! As a child, I loved the excitement of the Sinterklaas season, from his arrival mid November, until his birthday and following departure from Holland on December 6th. (More details about the Sinterklaas tradition can be found at www.thehollandring.com/sinterklaas.shtml) Now, I love it because Emma and Janne are so enthusiastic about it all :-)

On our way to see Sinterklaas, Emma and Janne dressed as little Peters

On Dec 5th, the eve of Sinterklaas' birthday, all good boys and girls receive (lots of) gifts from Sinterklaas. Once the children stop 'believing', Dec 5th turns into a regular gift-giving evening, where the gifts are supposed to be packaged in some ingenious/funny way and are to be accompanied by a poem.
Here comes Sinterklaas (in Veldhoven)

On the nights between Sinterklaas' arrival and Dec 5, children put their shoe in front of the fireplace, filled with a carrot or hay for Sinterklaas' horse and/or a drawing for Sinterklaas himself. At night, Sinterklaas' helper Black Peter, climbs down the chimney (hence his black color; it's amazing that Santa is not black ...) and exchanges the carrot and drawing for a small gift or some candy. In this period, it's never difficult to get kids out of bed in the morning, as they are very eager to see what Black Peter put in their shoe. It's all a lot of fun, both for young kids and their parents. All parents hope that the children will 'believe' as long as possible, but usually they see through it in first or second grade. Hopefully Emma will have at least one more year of 'believing', before reality replaces fantasy.
Singing for Sinterklaas, IN the fireplace iso in front of it :-)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the girls' school really believes in parent involvement. In the last couple of weeks, I've been at school every week, helping out, driving or decorating. It's fun, but it's also amazing how much help they seem to need and how little the teachers (can) do on their own ...
Janne's class on their fall hike; they all looked a little less clean at the end ...

Full weekend

On Saturday, we went to Alblasserdam, to the occasion of the opening of Pieter's daughter Charlotte's medical centre. From conceptual idea to opening day, it took the four initiators four years to realize their plans. And Pieter was of course beaming with pride that his daughter, as one of the initiators, made this happen! Below are the before and after pictures of the old school building in which the medical centre is now located. More info (in Dutch) and pics at www. gezondheidscentrumalblasserdam.nl
The old school

The new DOK 11 Medical Centre

Today, we celebrated my 41st (sssssht!) birthday. It was a very nice and busy day, with friends and family and kids. The food was not exactly the biggest success ever (I think I saw the kids using my meatballs as marbles ...), but fortunately everybody was very forgiving and they agreed I would probably do much better next time :-)
Birthday Girl - slightly out of focus; maybe that'll make me look younger

Despite the food, I think everybody had a good time. Including the six kids. With a similar toys-everywhere result as last Sunday.
The only quiet moments of the afternoon; the kids are watching Tarzan ...

Last, I want to share this pic of Janne with you. She truelly looks like Klein Duimpje in the Zevenmijlslaarzen. Guess whose boots these are ...
Little Thumb and the Seven-league Boots

Busy times

Again, it's been a while since the last post. Here's a few pics of what we did since then.
We went to my sister's rollerscate show; club members of all ages participated, from 4 up to 50+ years old!

Visiting Pieter's (French) sister and her youngest daughter, Zora
We had friends over for dinner; this is the result of a four adult, four kid (ages 3-5) dinner :-)

Janne calls oma; this looks promissing for when she's 14 or so ...

Now that he is retired, Pieter doesn't need all these ties anymore; we cleaned out over 20 and he still has about 20 left. Next round, we'll bring it down to 10.