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!