futball spielen

on sunday, our friends Kai, Alex, and Henri came to visit us. in junior high (i know - a LONG time ago!) Ross participated in a music program where he traveled to Europe. he stayed with Kai and his family. Ross and Kai both LOVE soccer or as they call it here.... futball. throughout the years Ross kept in touch with Kai. (we even visited Kai on our honeymoon almost 9 years ago) Kai, Alex, and Henri made the drive up from Germany for the day..... Kai, Ross, and the boys (oh - and Helen too!) played a lot of soccer in our backyard!

i'm sad to admit that i didn't get a picture of baby Henri (5 months old) or Alex.... next time!!!

note: even helen was wearing soccer shoes!

fun around the house

the gardener, Eli, took Graham and Jayden on a tractor ride yesterday afternoon. Graham helped Eli deliver all the garbage cans to the surrounding houses (garbage day is monday). then the neighbor invited the kids over to her house to see the 2 hedgehogs she kept over the winter. there is a hedgehog rescue shelter nearby and she was keeping them over the winter and will release them out in the "wild" later this spring. i better keep my back door closed!

jillian is 10 weeks old!

well, it seems that i cannot find time to post to my blog everyday - so when i have a chance i'm just going to post a bunch!

jillian is 10 weeks old today - hard to believe! she's smiling a lot and starting to reach for objects. she'll even hold on to a toy if you put it in her hand. she "talks" to her siblings too. she's been sleeping from about 10:30pm-5:30am most nights!

ross and i were talking this morning and we said in the past as our babies have gone through certain stages we've said "awe.....i wish this stage wasn't over".... now we're like "thank goodness this stage is over!!!!!" i guess 4 kids will do that to you :)

back to school

yes, in my "spare" time i am taking dutch lessons once a week. a teacher comes to our home each friday afternoon and spends about 20 minutes with Graham, 20 minutes with Jayden, 25 minutes with Ross, and 25 minutes with me. it's been a great way for us to learn more of the language.

however i am struggling to find time to do my homework each week. the book we are using has both audio and written work. thankfully the german i took in high school helps me to "skip" the audio portion right now and i've been able to read the sections to my teacher without too many mistakes :)

just going to the grocery store and riding my bike around town have been a lesson in learning the language!

hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog

ross bought a small grill just before we left so we could do some grillin' this summer. so, i bought what i thought were hot dogs at the store (still not sure after eating them if they were actually hot dogs!). however i could not find any hot dog buns at the store - so i had to buy croissants! the french would probably not approve :)

bikes, camera, action!

i've had many requests for a video of me driving my smart car (bike). while the video is definitely not 'hollywood' quality....you can get a glimpse of what i do each morning.

it takes me about 15 minutes to bike the kids apprximately 2.5 miles to school..... that includes 1 uphill climb and 2 roundabouts. due to traffic and having to park my bus (mini-van), it's actually faster to bike than take the kids by car!!

don't worry.....for the kids safety....and mine i didn't take video while out on the road :)

graham's cafe

graham's class has been studying a unit on jobs. to gain a better understanding about certain jobs, they visited an actual cafe and then came back to the classroom to role play what they observed. they invited several of the classes from the school throughout the week to their cafe and then finished the unit by inviting the parents to the cafe on thursday. during the unit, each student made a CV and applied for the jobs. graham was a head chef! there were managers, waitresses, clean up crew, and cashiers! they even had pretend euros for us to pay the bill!

my swiffer

ahhhh... i have been waiting several weeks for my swiffer to arrive here in holland. (i think one of my first blog posts a long time ago was about my cool discovery of the swiffer wet-jet!) the house we are renting hasn't been occupied for about 2.5 years. so you can imagine the amount of dust, spiders, and bugs in the house when i arrived.

those that know me well, know that i cannot stand a dirty floor or dirty bathroom for that matter! so it took me a few days after arriving to get a mop (we only had 1 car - so i had to wait for ross to buy me a mop). as soon as he bought me a mop (it was a sponge-type mop), i cleaned every floor in the house. i had to use a separate bucket of mop-water for each room in the house - the floors were that dirty!! i could also tell that the floors were dirty from the color of our white socks.... they were black! well, you can imagine how time consuming it was to mop each room with a sponge mop! so i patiently waited for my swiffer!... well, maybe not patiently :)

i took a photo of how many swiffer cloths it took me to mop ONLY the main floor in our house.....keep in mind this is AFTER i sponge-mopped the floor too. oh, and a bottle of swiffer cleaner too! ugh! that's really gross! to be honest it took me about that many swiffer cloths to clean each room in our house!

girl's clothes

i often wonder why it's so easy to shop for little girl's clothes..... helen has probably 5 times more clothes than the boys. she also has about 5 pairs of shoes and the boys each have 2 pairs. everytime i walk into a store, i can't resist the urge to look in the girl's clothing section. most of the time, i force myself to walk through the boys section first! i think it's a good thing we had another girl.....

as i was putting out helen's SUMMER clothes - i realized she probably has too many clothes :) ....specifically waaaaaaaay too many matilda jane clothes. this is a picture of her SUMMER matilda jane clothes (yep, she probably has about as many WINTER matilda jane outfits too)... i am embarrased to admit that this does not inlcude matilda jane t-shirts and tank tops.... oh and a few outfits that were in the laundry. oh, and also her many other pieces of summer clothing too! ..........sigh

my version of the smart car

here's a picture of my new bike - it can hold all 4 kids at once! it's surprisingly easy to pedal and turn. it takes me about 15 minutes to "drive" the kids to school each day. much faster than driving the car around here. i think of it as my contribution to the environment... and saving on gas money (gas is roughly $9/gallon here) .....oh and i'm hoping to drop the last few "baby pounds" too :)

a diet coke for ms. trisha

on saturday, we drove to a nearby town called amersfort to pick up my bike. we passed a mcdonald's and decided to take the kids to lunch. mcdonald's is pretty much the same here as it is in the states with the exception that you get your drink and then they cook your food and bring you out (fresh and hot!) no stale, cold french fries here!! oh and the mcdonald's are not on almost every corner like they are in the states :)

as i ordered my drink, i thought of my good friend trisha - she loves diet coke from mcdonalds.

daddy's little girl

during the week helen and i have been enjoying some time together while the boys are at school. we've been eating lunch at this little table together. today, ross was home and she asked him if he would eat lunch with her at her little table. so cute!

organized chaos!

on thursday, the last of our goods arrived.... this is what my family room, kitchen, and front foyer looked like after they unloaded the truck thursday morning. JUST when i thought i was getting things organized around here....sigh!

new tub!

i find it very hard to purchase any more baby items - you would think with 4 kids that i would have everything that i need..... well, i did not bring a baby bath tub.

we were out shopping today and i could not resist this european bath tub. i wasn't sure how jillian would do in the tub - but she seemed to like it! (i guess you are supposed to hold the baby by the chin and they will naturally put their feet down towards the bottom - mimicking the womb. jillian didn't seem to mind a bit!)

you can see in the first picture that she naturally situated herself in the tub.... if you look close enough, you can see her little toes peeking through the bubbles.

tomorrow night i will use a little less soap and water :)

jillian is 8 weeks old

yes, it's hard to believe jillian is 8 weeks old today! she's smiling a lot, cooing, moving her hands to her mouth...... only waking once at night ..... but napping during the day is a different story! she naps best in my sling (sigh)

my stash!

today i was putting away the last of our items that we brought with us from the states. as you can see from the photos, these are a few of my "favorite things"from the states that i won't be able to get here in the netherlands.... well, the toilet paper, kleenex, and paper towel are not my favorite things.... i just bought those items at sam's club to get us started.

while i know this is not a 3 year supply.... it will get me through for a while :) when we return to the states, i wonder if i will have a stash of items that i bring back with me from the netherlands???

oh - i should have included peanut butter in this stash!!! the kids don't seem to mind the peanut butter taste here so far.... but i really miss my creamy jiff peanut butter.... and i'm a peanut butter and jelly kind of gal :)

new school

the boys started school last wednesday. here is a picture of them next to the sign at their school. so far they seem to like going to school and are meeting kids from so many different cultures. they go to school monday, tuesday, thursday, and friday from 9am-3pm and wednesday from 9am-1pm. each of them has 1.5 hours of dutch lessons each week at school.

introducing.... mister!

this statue is in front of our driveway as we approach our house..... i did not put him here, but i do remember seeing this man here when we came to look at the house last november... as we have walked around the property grounds this spring, we have noticed several different kinds of statues all around (stay tuned for more pictures!)

i was outside with the kids the other day and decided to have the kids come up with a name for this guy....i know it sounds a little crazy... but i needed a little excitement around here!

the boys came up with "mister" for his name.... mister?, i said.... how original!

so, meet "mister".

clean up on aisle 1

well, it seems that lately my blog entries are about poop and puke. i guess just part of the reality that my job is being a mom!

helen has been fighting a tummy bug for about 4 days now. yesterday i thought she was turning the corner - she was able to keep crackers, popsicles, and water down and slept great last night. this morning she had a little bit of oatmeal, a popsicle, and some water. so after dropping off the boys at school - i decided to run to the grocery store to stock up for the weekend. i took the stroller and helen rode on the board that i have attached to the stroller while i put groceries in the bag of the stroller. i had about 3 things in the stroller bag when all of a sudden helen had this funny look on her face..... i said "do you have to get sick?" while i'm asking this question, i'm fumbling at the back of the stroller to try and grab a bag just in case she was going to get sick. TOO LATE!! out it came! i thought to myself - now what am i going to do? i don't know how to ask for help in dutch....thankfully a nice lady came up to me and offered to get some help from a store clerk. helen, jillian, and i waited for what seemed like forever for someone to come over to help us.... of course we were right in the middle of the aisle.... in everyone's way....i didn' want to move out of the way.... at least the stroller was covering up the "mess". i had several people begin to speak to me in dutch... thankfully i have figured out the phrase for "do you speak english?" i met a gentleman who knew some people from wisconsin that had lived here 10 years ago..... and a lady who tried to entertain helen with a picture of 2 dogs on her shopping bag.

so this young man came over with one of those industrial size floor cleaners and as he assessed the situation he said "one moment" and walks away. he comes back in a few minutes with a pair of rubber gloves, bucket of cleaning solution, and LOTS of towels! i felt so sorry for him.

now i have a dilemma - i needed so many things from the store.... but i didn't want her to get sick again.... so i kept the fruit that didn't get "soiled" and ran by the bread section to get some bread for my lunch..... oh and some laundry soap because i've been doing helen's laundry for the last 4 days and i was out of laundry soap!

now we're off to the doctor this afternoon! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

beep - please leave a message at the tone

while i don't really consider myself a super religious person, i was raised lutheran and our family attends (well, not while we're in NL) a presbyterian church... i heard a sermon about 4 months ago about being called by God.. the pastor went on to say that you might get this calling at what you might think is 'not the right time' or 'not the calling that you were looking for'. during the sermon, i couldn't help but think that my calling was our move to the netherlands.

last night was one of those times, i wish i could have just said "beep - please leave a message after the tone, God - no one is home".

helen seems to have caught a flu bug and had been getting sick for the last 24 hours....last night (warning - too much information ahead!) she woke up at about 1:30am pretty much dry heaving,,,,, she proceeded to do this about every 30-45 minutes until about 6am. all this in between jillian's two feedings. i can remember saying to myself at 1 point "why me?.... what else?" "beep - no one is home, God"

the boys started school today, helen was sick, and i'm tired! ross got the boys ready and i headed off to school...... just a few miles away.....oh and we finally have a car big enough for the 4 kids now.....AND don't worry ...i have my tomtom!!!!! so off we go! ross had taken me on a practice run to the school on the day after easter (holiday here that day) so i could figure out where to park..... well, that's easier said than done... where am i gonna park this SUV-type car now - ahhhhh and i don't have my stoller 'cause the car trunk is too small to fit my stroller......and don't forget - helen is sick. so we drive around a bit (i think graham was worried he would be late for school) - i found a parking spot and walked the boys to school.... carrying jillian's carseat in one hand and helen on my other hip. (barf bag in hand!)

the boys found their classrooms and settled in - no problem. helen, jillian, and i headed home. i called to get helen an appointment with the chiropractor to get adjusted..hoping this would help her fever and tummy. the chiropracter was very nice and it turns out helen's neck and lower back were out of alignment. helen kept asking for water at the chiropractor... i was afraid to give her any fluids today since she could not keep anything down last night. she kept going over to the coffee/tea station and saying "water, mommy". after the appoinment we went back to pick up the boys from school (early release on wednesdays!) and headed home. helen drank a little bit of water and had some ice chips. ross had already made an appointment with our family doctor (assigned to us through socalized medicine) for later in the afternoon. turns out helen was a bit dehydrated.

even though i would have liked to "turn on the answering machine last night and today" - God helped me through the day..... jillian slept in her carseat while i dropped the boys off at school and also took another nap this afternoon..... so far helen has been able to keep her small amounts of fluid down......ross was able to help me with helen last night.

sorry ross, but i love tom

ross rented me a car last wednesday so that we could go on thursday morning to register with the town of hilversum. what i'm about to tell you is probably one of the scariest moments in my life... well at least it's one of the top few :) i sat in the driver's seat and turned on the car..... well, i forgot that in a standard car - you must put your foot on the brake and the clutch! yikes! i coasted a couple feet! then took about 15 deep breaths.... and said a few prayers.... it has been a while since i've driven a standard car. now i just had to drive a few blocks to the parking garage where i was going to meet ross and the kids to go shopping for food. well, what ross and i didn't realize was due to 1-way roads, i would not be able to get to the parking garage (also, keep in mind this is the first time i've been into the city of hilversum and the first day i've been out since arriving in the netherlands).

so here i go.... off on a 1-way road ....passing the parking garage and i have no idea where i am or how i'm going to get back to the parking garage where i was supposed to meet ross and the 4 kids! i don't speak dutch to ask for directions back to a parking garage (that i don't even know the name of!)......and i don't have a cell phone yet

thankfully i remembered that ross had a tomtom in his backpack which was in the back seat and i remembered the name of the rental car facility! approximately 30 minutes later.....maybe longer.... i found the parking garage!! i won't lie...... i shed a few tears while i was lost

and now i have a cell phone!!!

happy easter!

it's jillian's first easter and i don't even have a picture of her today! oops! she's such a good baby that she pretty much eats and sleeps - so she misses out on the chaos of the other kids :)

the easter bunny visited our home in the netherlands - brought some starbucks cups for the kids and hid some eggs around the house. the kids enjoyed hunting for eggs, coloring a few eggs, and even had an egg relay race! we finished the day with a lasagna dinner!

happy birthday to ME!

today was my birthday - i spent the day with my family. it was a great day! ross brought home a yummy cake and some beautiul flowers. the kids each made me a card and sang 'happy birthday to mooooommmmmmy!'

48 hours

the title reminds of that show on tv where they track the first 48 hours of a missing person..... well here's my 48 hour account of our trip to the netherlands.

we woke up sunday morning, the kids were very excited to get to the airport... i think graham probably asked me about 10 times "is it 1 o'clock yet?"(the time we told him we were leaving for the airport). i think i processed about 8 loads of laundry throughout the morning as i tried to find a place in our suitcases for all our remaining 'stuff'. as the time approached noon, ross ran a few errands with the kids, including a run to target for another piece of luggage. we had lunch and realized that we were going to need ANOTHER piece of luggage - so ross ran to target to get another bag... er should i say 2 bags. good thing he got another bag - we needed it! we loaded up the car around 1:45... yes, already 45 minutes later than our targeted departure time! i pulled the cloth diapers out of the dryer and we headed to the airport. ross dropped me off at the front door at o'hare with 13 pieces of luggage and 4 kids! ahhhhh! fortunately i had some help to the check-in counter. we got all the luggage checked in and ross returned the rental car. then we proceeded through security and on to the business class lounge. not too bad! the kids got some snacks and about 25 minutes later we made our way to the gate and after 2 rides on the moving belt, we boarded the airplane and got settled. the boys found video games on the plane and helen was entertained by the window shades.... open.....close..... open ..... close....open...close ... you get the idea. we took off and dinner was served. after dinner, helen fell asleep and the boys played video games and watched movies until about midnight chicago time (our flight left around 6pm chicago time). where was jillian? pretty much sleeping the ENTIRE flight! i actually watched a couple of movies! i didn't want to fall asleep because i had to hold jillian on my lap.

we landed at schiphol airport around 9:30am local time. proceeded to claim all 13 pieces of luggage, 4 carseats, a stroller, and kept track of 4 kids :) ross had to arrage for a taxi to take some of us to our home since there were no rental cars available to hold 6 people. so, graham, helen, jillian, the13 pieces of luggage, and i got in the taxi.... ross gave me 200 euros and told the driver where our house was located..... 30 minutes later we arrived at our home!! (please note - i didn't have any way of getting a hold of ross if we got lost - my cell phone didn't work in the netherlands!)

at our new house, we were greeted by our friendly neighbor who had a special flower arrangement on our table and chocolate bunnies for the kids. they had also filled our fridge with some essential foods to get started. about 25 minutes later ross and jayden arrived. after a tour of the house and a nutella sandwich for everyone.....jillian went down for a nap and so did i!! about 3 hours later i woke up feeling so much better!! ross had taken the kids on a walk around our estate with the neighbor and he showed them where to feed some deer. the kids came inside for a drink of juice. graham was so tired that he forgot that we have an elevated table and he fell off the chair! graham and juice went everywhere!! the kids decided to play some board games in the family room until dinner.

warning....this paragraph may contain too much information for you...... :) i was putting some of our stuff away and noticed something on the family room floor...... somehow helen had pooped (keep in mind she has been potty trained for a while!) and then prcoeeded to track it around the first floor.....ughhhhh! gross! now i had to find something to clean it up and clean her up! yuck!!!!

the kids went to bed around 9pm local time....jillian fell asleep around 10:30pm and i crashed! on tuesday morning, ross headed off to work and i stayed home with the kids. the kids slept until almost noon! (not jillian, of course!) they all woke up so thirsty!!!

boys on the plane and fun in the new house

more airport and airplane pics