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!