more christmas

bubble santa beards

helen presents.... our little tree :)

this angel is made from the fabric of my wedding dress

christmas in november

i love this picture!! the tree decorating from jillian's perspective :)

getting out the stockings

i believe this is the earliest we have ever decorated for christmas! well, considering we leave for the states on december 18th - i thought we better enjoy a few weeks of christmas in our home. last night we put up our little artificial tree (normally we get a "real" tree) and a few decorations.

i think the kids are really confused though... we hung up the stockings last night and the kids said this morning - did sinterklaas come last night and fill our stockings? i said no- sinterklaas fills shoes and santa claus fills stockings :)

Night and Day

Graham completed another unit in school... this unit was about the differences between night and day. Helen enjoyed the "performance" too :)

Graham is wearing hat with a moon on it... some classmates had the sun and other classmates had the earth. they did a cute demonstration where the sun and the moon circled the earth.

His unit on night and day also included a walk during the day to listen, watch, and smell their surroundings and a walk during the night to listen, watch, and smell their surroundings

Helen Piet

Helen made this "Piet" hat at her school. She was called "Helen Piet". I have provided a link from Wikipedia below for the story behind Sinterklaas in the Netherlands.

The children have been putting their shoes out most nights and the other night Helen received a piece of coal in her shoe (coal is given to "naughty" children)..... unfortunately as Helen's personality goes... she was very proud of this piece of coal :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas

sinterklaas

On Saturday we went to the town of Zwolle (where Ross works) - to see Sinterklaas.

Sinterklaas also visited our house last night to bring a few presents to the kids. It is a tradition in Holland for the children to put their shoes out each night from around the 15 of November until Sinterklaas leaves Holland on his birthday, 5 of December. Sinterklaas may leave a present one of the nights - but not necessarily every night.

I will describe the "traditions" of the Sinterklaas holiday in detail later this week!

my hollywood girl!

while visiting my parents in texas last month, jillian had her pictures taken... little did i know - she would become famous!

first of all - i have to thank Candice at Candice Thomas photography - her work is AMAZING!!!!

http://www.candicethomasphotography.com/site/#/portfolio/children/

second of all - jillian is wearing a necklace made from Lillian Eve Designs (an etsy shop). the owner liked the pictures that Candice took and asked to feature them in her shop!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/LilianEveDesigns

you can also follow them both on facebook - Candice Thomas Photography and LillianEveDesigns

9 months!

it's bath letter time!! i think these are the best little bath toy invented! (you don't have to worry about them collecting mold like the squirty toys.... or the kids drinking the water from the little stacking cups) and educational at the same time :)

splashing in the tub!

here's the typical "mom - would you please take the picture while i give you this half-hearted smile!"

how can it be? jillian is 9 months old today!

i know i've said it about a thousand times... she's such a happy baby.... so easy going... always smiling (no teeth yet!!)..... never napping in her bed 'cause we're always on the run to get the other kids..... blue eyed.... blonde hair.... she's my sweet baby jilly! we love her so much!

photos from zaanse schans

a line of clouds along the coast

albert heijn

the picture above was not taken in the grocery store... it was taken in a separte house that made cheese

These pictures show a replica shop of the first Albert Heijn grocery store here in the Netherlands. The original store was located in Oostzaan and was built in 1887. The original shop was only 12 square meters and almost all the stock was kept in barrels, cases, and tins in the shop. The only storage outside the shop was a shed for soap, salt, soda, and oil. The pictures show the shop's inventory just as it was in 1887.

A few more interesting facts from the brochure that we picked up while visiting the replica store..... Clogs were displayed in the attic and customers usually came to buy clogs on Sundays after church. The paper bags were made in the local jail by prisoners and the grocer stamped them with his own name.

wooden shoes

.... and a few other "typical dutch" images. we visited a town called Zaanse Schans just north of Amsterdam and along the coast.

laundry!

my (clean) laundry pile is so big thats it's swallowing Jillian......hhhhheeeeeelllllllpppppp!

sint marteen dag (november 11th)

I am a little behind in my blogging - but on Thursday, November 11th - we celebrated Sint Marteen Dag here in the Netherlands. I've cut and pasted the story below from a website that i Googled. I've also attached a clip of a song that Jayden learned at school (he insisted that i take a video of him singing this song! - and sorry that it's "sideways" - bad camera operation on my part!). The kids made this "lantern-type" craft at school too.

Our Dutch teacher told us that in the neighborhoods around the netherlands on Sint Marteen day - the children carry around lanterns and go to their neighbor's houses to sing songs and receive candy.

As we were driving home from swim lessons on Thursday night, we saw some children walking around with their parents. Unfortunately we do not have any neighbors where we live - so the children were not able to participate.

In The Netherlands, the feast of St Martin of Tours is celebrated as Sint Marteen Day, with festivities especially for children. Comparable to the observance of Halloween in North America, children fashion lanterns and wear costumes as they go from house begging for sweets in areas of The Netherlands and Belgium.
St Martin of Tours was a Roman soldier born in the first millenium of the Christian era in what is now Hungary. He refused to serve the Emperor and became a monk and later a revered bishop. He is one of the most revered saints in Christendom, in both the east and west. Tradition holds that during a cold winter, he encountered a poor beggar who was nearly naked. St Martin cut his cloak in half and gave it to the beggar and later had a vision that led him to a life of charity and service to the Church.
At one time, the feast of St Martin began a 40 day period of fasting. This was later to become the observance of Advent, or the preparation of the coming of Christmas. Therefore, Martinmas - as it was once known in Britain - was a carnival ('farewell to meat') much as is Mardi Gras in advance of Lent.
Children sing traditional songs in commemoration of the charitable former soldier.

Dutch version:
Sinte, Sinte Maarten,

De koeien hebben staarten,

Geef een appel of een peer,

Dan kom ik dit jaar niet meer.

English version:

Saint, Saint Martin,

The cows have tails,

Give us an apple or a pear,

Then we won't come back this year.

nooooooooooo!

caught!

she gets the angle of the foot JUST right....

she is laughing in this picture because she is so proud of what she has done :)

i knew this moment would come......jillian is pulling herself up on the furniture!

Free time?

what's free time? i don't get much of it - but when i do - i love to be creative! the first picture shows some items that have been waiting for "repair" for a while. the next picture shows some bibs that i made for jillian.

fall color

i love the vibrant reds of the maple trees in the fall!

here are some pictures of the last few days of "fall color" here in hilversum. for several days last week - the forest had what looked like a yellow glow to it. last weekend we had a lot of rain and wind - so the leaves are pretty much gone from the trees now. winter has settled in for the next few months. i am hoping that the "costal climate" proves to be much milder (and significantly less snow!) than the chicago winters we are used to!

the last picture did not come out very good... but i was trying to show that the leaves were up almost to the top of the tire on my bike! that's a lot of leaves!!!