feestelijk moederdag!

that's happy mother's day in dutch.

my mother's day got off to an interesting start... all little reminders that i am a mom for sure. jillian wished me a happy mother's day first by waking me to eat around 1:30am. jayden was second - only his wishes were not exactly what i expected... i heard some fast pitter-patter upstairs at around 4am. i could tell someone was rushing to use the bathroom.... well jayden didn't quite make it! so i helped him get changed and back to bed. after another feeding for jillian - i was able to sleep until 9:30am! yeah! when i woke up, graham came running up to me and gave me a hug and said "mom - do you have another baby in your tummy?" - i quickly replied "NO!!" - he said "mom - your tummy is big". i could not think of what to say.... after all at my 6 week checkup after having jillian i only had about 10 pounds to loose.... i was simply speechless! the joys of motherhood! .... and honesty of children!

for the remainder of the day - our family went to see the giro d'itialia bike race go by our house, then we hopped a train to utrecht where we toured a beautiful church and walked around the city. then we watched the finish of the bike race!

my top 10 list of moments in my life as a mom so far (in no particular order)

1. the moment each child was born.... i remember all 4 individual moments vividly

2. the first "coo" from each child (brought tears to my eyes each time)

3. the smell of a child after their bath

4. the moment a child takes their first step.... a little wobbly at first - but soon full of confidence

5. when a toddler reaches up to grab your finger to walk next to you

6. a fresh bunch of dandalion flowers

7. graham was the only one of my children to attend daycare - but i remember the "smile" on his face in a picture that the daycare sent me on his first day after i went back to work

8. the look on a baby's face when they make the hand to object connection

9. the first day of kindergarten - it's amazing how much a child changes from start to end of kindergarten. it's the first time i realized that my babies are really growing up!

10. the first time a child reads a book from start to finish

i feel so blessed each day to be a mom and i'm thankful for my 4 beautiful children!

lazy

i wanted to make some cookies from my favorite sugar cookie recipe but i was too lazy to roll out the dough and use the cookie cutters so i made 2 giant cookies and used a pizza cutter to make smaller cookies. yum!

anja visits hilversum

anja with all the kids!

watching a tv show in german

last weekend our friend anja and her 2 boys, david and ruben, visited from germany. anja is kai's sister (kai visited the previous wekend)......ross and i met anja on our honeymoon trip to europe almost 9 years ago.... anja was pregnant with ruben at the time of our honeymoon.

even though ruben and david didn't speak much english and our kids didn't speak any german - the kids still managed to play hide=n=seek and thomas the train.

we introduced ruben and david to the 'american lunch'.... chips and a sandwich :) anja sent me a message stating that the boys requested sandwich bread and chips from the store when they got home!

queen's cake

i'm not exactly sure what these cakes are called but they were flying off the shelves the day before queen's day at the grocery store so i decided to get some too!

this hot air balloon went over our house on queen's day too!

koninginnedag

that's queen's day in dutch. april 30th, the people in the netherlands celebrate the birthday of Queen Juliana. it is a public holiday and nearly all shops are closed. the current queen chooses one or two towns each year to visit. the queen is greeted with parades, flags, music, and of course people wearing the official color of the country - orange!

although the queen did not choose our town to visit this year, we still rode our bikes into hilversum to see what was going on in the city..... of course most of us found some orange to wear that day. we found a city-wide garage sale in the center of town, a carnival with rides, food, and lots of people "celebrating" the day.

the last 2 pictures were taken at the entrance of our home. the gardeners put out 2 special flags for the day. the netherlands flag and an orange flag (unfortunately you can't see the orange flag in the picture)

a mommy swimsuit

i came across this swimsuit in a catalog the other day. (sorry about the "flash" on the photo.... our scanner is not hooked up yet - so i took a picture of the catalog).

i would never actually buy this swimsuit....not my style... but i thought maybe this swimsuit was designed for moms who have given birth....and are left with the post-pregnancy stretched out tummy.... but still want to wear a bikini!

bikini in the back.... mommy-style coverage in the front.

i love clean laundry....

...i just HATE folding it! this is just 2 day's worth of laundry for our family .... waiting to be folded! i am very good at "processing" the laundry... getting it washed and dried - but i'm not so good at getting the laundry folded and put away. ross usually ends up folding the laundry after a few days have passed and the pile of clean laundry keeps growing!

my new excuse for laundry is my washer and dryer.... my washer/dryer here are much smaller than my american washer/dryer. it seems i am always waiting on the dryer to finish! (the dryer actually cycles the drum in different directions about every 2 minutes- pausing in between to change directions) you can see in the picture a typical situation in my laundry room.... the next load waiting in the laundry basket for the dryer while another load is aldready in the washer. if it didn't rain here so much i would hang the laundry outside to dry!