big brother

most of the time when jillian is playing on the floor or in her bouncy seat and starts fussing - the first person to run over to "entertain" her is jayden.

the other day, i was switching around some laundry and jillian was playing on the floor.... she started fussing and i noticed that graham had come over to her to try to "entertain" her. he decided that jillian needed EVERY toy from her toybox!! what a great big brother!

the whistler

helen came up with this whistle on her own. she now uses this whistle to get my attention to do something for her..... she even whistled at ross the other day because he was not "attending to her" quick enough.

i hear her whistling as she comes down the stairs in the morning. she will often whistle while riding her loopfiets outside.

funny thing.... she is actually whistling through her tongue!

dirty girl and happy girl

helen loves to play in the dirt! i probably wash her feet about 4 times a day..... i guess you're only a kid once :) ..... sigh

jillian is such a happy girl.... i snapped this picture of her playing yesterday afternoon

more butterflies

jillian reaches out for a flower while the other kids search for butterflies

vlinders

ross bought the kids some butterfly (vlinder) nets. they have enjoyed catching butterflies in the yard. i can remember using similar nets as a child to catch either butterflies or minnows at our lake place in the summer.

helen was concentrating so hard that she had her tongue sticking out while running after a butterfly.... AND i actually captured it in a picture!

jayden was so proud that he captured the first butterfly.

for the nature lovers out there... no worries - we did a "catch and release" :) (see next blog post)

tub time

jillian has been in the "big" bath tub for a little while now. after i wash her hair ... well she really doesn't have MUCH hair!.... and wash her body... i drain the tub a bit. she loves to lay on her tummy and "splash" ... she moves her hands back and forth to splash water the water on her face - the more water she splashes - the more she squeals! she loves the water. she's loves to "taste" the bubbles too.

my little wood-sprite

my mom sent this dress to helen - it's a beautiful smocked dress that she made. thanks mom!

helen loved wearing the dress and here are some pictures of her on our walk the other night. she loves to walk in the forest - smelling flowers, picking up sticks, and dancing around.

NOT a morning person!

On Wednesday's the boys have swim lessons that start at 8:00am. This means we need to leave our house around 7:25am to get them to their lessons on-time. This week I put both girls in the car in their PJ's. Helen had her breakfast (cereal in the container and milk in the cup)"to-go" and ate it while the boys had their swim lesson.

Thank goodness the lessons are only at the time for the summer!

The scavenger hunt - part Twee (two)

Only 4 more weeks of summer vacation!

Last week, the kids said they enjoyed their scavenger hunt so much that I decided to do another type of scavenger hunt. This time we found things in our yard and taped them to a piece of posterboard. The kids wrote the names of the items on the posterboard too.

Now I need to come up with something for this week.......hmmmmm.

Text-Book Holland

I took some "text-book" images of Holland today. It seems every book we have about Holland talkes about Vis and Frites (fish and fries - the fries come with mayonaise of course!) and bikes.

Today we were in a small town called Hardewijk, near the northwest coast of Holland and I witnessed some of these"text-book" images in person. Pretty cool!

The bike is actually a kid's bike and after I downloaded the picture of the Vis and Frites I noticed the sign is just above the bathroom!..... of course this bathroom costs 50cents to use! Also typical of Holland - I know this all too well with a toddler! I keep many coins in my wallet!

grocery shopping!

along with summer vacation - comes shopping trips to the store with all 4 kids! it also seems like i need to go to the grocery store more often when they are home because they are always "BORED" and want a snack!

all 3 kids HAD to push a cart in the store on monday!

let the addiction begin!

nope! it's not another post about my obsession with Matilda Jane Clothing! i won't even go there right now!

sunday, i went out on my first run on since jillian was born. although i am not exactly sure how far i ran.... my Nike iPod sensor was not working (it had been a while since i last used it and i think it needs to be reset) - but my guess is that i ran about 3 miles. jillian fell asleep about half-way through my run. i felt great during the run but the past few days have been very difficult for me to get down to or up from a squatting position.... makes for an interesting time helping helen with various activities :)

i'll be honest... i haven't run again since sunday.... but training will start soon for the Amsterdam half-marathon to take place on october 17! all my biking around town must count for some training!

web piano recital

graham has been working on his piano lessons with ross since we moved here. he just completed another piano book and decided to have a piano recital via skype with grandma, grandpa, and aunt jenny. he wrote out the program and jayden did the announcing!

these shoes weren't made for walking

last saturday, we visited another castle in the area. this castle seemed more like a fancy home to me.... i believe it was the mayor of amsterdam who lived in this castle in a town called baarn just outside of hilversum. the 2nd floor had a few rooms that were fixed up to function as conference rooms and even a wedding chapel. The top 2 floors of the castle were actually set up like a modern-day children's museum.... interesting!

the kids seemed to enjoy the children's museum portion... it was an exhibit on farm animals.

we found a pair of these wooden shoes as part of a "dress up" section.

i must say that just this week i actually saw someone wearing a pair of wooden shoes - it was a construction worker - working on the round-about near our home! i am sure we have all tried to "squeeze" our foot into an uncomfortable shoe at one time or another - but i can't imagine that those shoes would be very comfortable to work in? perhaps i should try a pair - before i judge!

my jilly is 5 months!

jillian is 5 months old already! she's settled in to a great nap schedule lately which makes mommy very happy! - 1 short nap in the morning and a long (almost 2 hours) nap in the afternoon! she's pretty much sleeping through the night. she has discovered her voice and uses her hands to grab objects. in fact everytime i have a yogurt - she manages to get her hand in it!

she rolls from back to front and front to back now too. in fact, most of the time when i lay her down on her back - she rolls over to her tummy to play. i am quickly reminded of how much i preferred carpet to wood floors during this stage :) she manages to roll off of any type of blanket that i put down on the floor here! i have found her "sucking" on the floor a few times :) i do love the look of wood floors - but..... with a baby... not so much!

she giggles when you tickle her tummy and every once and a while when one of the kids does something she thinks is funny - she will let out a belly laugh!

such a fun stage!!!!

daddy kisses

ross taught jillian how to give him kisses! she might give him kisses but i am sure her first word will be MAMA!

things that BUG me

once again i'm sitting down to catch up on my blog posts!

this weekend ross noticed a strange "buzzing" noise in the upstairs bathroom..... after some investigation - he determined that we had bees in the vent in our bathroom. nothing a little duct tape can't fix for now.... and of course a call to the landlord :)

sunday morning - at about 6am - both ross and i woke up to a fly buzzing around our room.... that is so annoying when you are trying to sleep and a fly lands on your arm or better yet - your nose!

last week during dinner - i felt something on my neck.... reached up on my neck to discover a spider crawling on me!

who's my pretty girl?

last picture tonight! i could not resist posting this picture of my pretty girl, helen.

whenever i say the phrase pretty girl, it reminds me of this:

since helen has been little, i have always called her "my pretty girl".... i know, i'm biased as her mom..... but after having 2 boys.... i have to refer to her as my pretty girl. i used to say "who's my pretty girl?" when she was very little. now whenever i talk to jillian and say "who's my pretty girl?" - helen will put her face right in my face and SHOUT "I'M YOUR PRETTY GIRL, MOM!!!" "NOT, JILLIAN! HELEN IS YOUR PRETTY GIRL!!!!" my response is - "yes helen, YOU are my pretty girl!"

the scavenger hunt!

this week marks the first official start to summer here in hilversum.... no school until mid-august.....with that comes the role of full-time entertainer for me!

today, we decided to have a scavenger hunt outside around our house. the kids each took a notebook and i had them write down 3 things that they thought they might find around the yard. i helped the boys spell the words and even helen pretended to write down some words.

after writing down the words, we headed outside to check the items off their lists. we didn't make it 2 feet out the door before each kid realized there were more items they wanted to write down..... so they wrote down a few more items on their list and we proceeded on our scavenger hunt.

their lists included dirt, sticks, deer, swimming pool, garden, bushes, rocks, pine cones, bees, birds, and even cars! we ran out of time to finish our scavenger hunt... lunch takes a priority to scavenger hunts :) even jillian was kicking and "talking" as the kids hunted around the yard!

we'll finish the rest of the hunt tomorrow!