School Christmas Party

On Thursday December 18th the Girls had a Christmas party at school in the evening time. Each class gathers together and sings Christmas song and tells the story of Jesus being born. The girls love their Christmas party at school. I keep trying to figure out how to get in and record part of it but the parents are sent of to socialize while the class has its party. I guess I'm the only one fascinated with the Dutch culture enough to want to get it on tape. Maybe next year.

Brianna in her classroom

Kaitlyn by her classroom.

Christmas Chocolates!

A friend brought by some Christmas chocolates for our family. It was so thoughtful of her. I thought the chocolates were so pretty that I had to take a picture of them before they were eaten. So here is a picture... Know that besides being pretty, they were good chocolates.

Gingerbread Houses!

One of my favorite tradition of Christmas is making Gingerbread houses. This Family night we had planned to make our Gingerbread houses.

The Elders from Church called and asked if we could provided dinner for 2 visiting elders. We agreed and bought some extra stuff so they could make a gingerbread house too.

The girls love it every time the missionaries come over for dinner. The bounce to the door when the bell rings and talk non-stop to the missionaries until they leave. This time the bell rang and the same thing happened they ran yelling to the door. We were at the oven cooking and finishing up. Brianna comes into me and says in a very serious tone of voice. "Mom, when are the real missionaries going to get here." She had left the visiting Elders at the door because they were not the "real" missionaries that we have a church every week. Brianna loves Elder Walker the best. We had to go and invite the elders in.

After a short amount of time the girls decided these elders were equally as cool and began talking away. We had such an enjoyable time making our gingerbread houses. These elders shared with us that one of the most interesting things they have eaten over here is pasta with apple sause on it. I had to go ask a few of my friends about it. They said they have never done apple sause on their pasta but they do, do apple sause on there vegitables, it makes them taste better they say. It is something to think about. Maybe someday I will try it?

Starting the process.

Brooke was enjoying eating the candy and Brian did the decorating of hers.

The girls are enjoying the activity.

everyone

Brooke Being cute

I love this picture of her.

This is my real Brooke and her house.


Kaitlyns house is complete.


Brianna's Fisished house



The Elders... Need I say more. 19(ish) year old boys are so weird.

STRESS!

I love Christmas and I love all the wonderful fun memories that we get to make with our children and all the fun traditions.

With Christmas comes some stress also. Stress of lots of things to do. When I get stressed I get forgetful. I absolutely hate this part of me. I hate forgetting things because to me it is absolutely embarrassing that I forgot.

Because this month has been full of stress and being sick and lots of stuff not working out the way it was suppose to there were a lot of things I forgot. Here is a small list of important things I can remember that I have forgotten this month.

1)A friend moved and left the country - I wanted to go by and say goodbye and let her know she would be missed. Instead I forgot and didn't remember until a week after she had moved. I was so sad.

2)A friend had her baby and I was suppose to take her dinner. My children got sick the same week and I totally forgot and didn't remember until today. Which is so sad. I have to call and say sorry. I feel so irresponsible.

3)Another friends husband became deathly ill and was in the hospital. I'm so "la-di-da!" all the time that I didn't notice at church or pick up that something was wrong. I finally read her blog page and realized all the stress she had been through, but I read it after he was home from the hospital. I felt so stupid that I don't even know how to bring it up or say I'm sorry.

4)I have had weeks go by where I have forgotten to call my mom all together and left her in worry that I was mad at her.

5)I have forgotten EVERY family members birthday who's birthday was in the month of December. For example at the beginning of this month I called Brian's brother Dono to verify when his wife Jackie's Birthday was. He told me December 11. I then promptly forgot to get a gift ordered and mailed and I forgot to even call on her Birthday, I totally forgot about it until like December 20th. My family is loaded with December birthdays... I have many I forgot stories for this month.

6) I've been sick with something similar to Laryngitis this week. I've been down and miserable on the couch. I've had Brooke throwing up and Brianna sick also. Not a fun week but I did my best to finish up Christmas shopping. I had to turn to online shopping because actually leaving the house to do my christmas shopping was not going to happen. One of my gifts for Brian was going to be putting to gether a picture collage of him and the girls and the fun activities they did this year. I ordered the pictures online and I just needed to pick them up at Kruidvat. I had the picture frame and everything. Did I remember to pick up the photo's from the store? Nope. Did I have that gift to give to Brian? Nope!

7)I forgot to mail out Christmas cards. Nothing to friends or family.

8)I had friends email me and ask for our address so they could mail us Christmas cards and I forgot to reply to the emails.

9)I have a friend from Spain and she goes back to Spain with her family every vacation. They have a Hamster. She always ask if I can care for the hamster while they are away. I am always happy to do it as it makes my children happy and we are not going anywhere anyways. Well as they were getting ready to leave to go to the airport and were coming by to drop Stuart the hamster off at my house. Was I at home? Nope, I forgot she was coming over. Marta couldn't get a hold of me at all and was forced to leave Stuart at her house and a key with the neighbors in hopes that I would return to get the hamster. When I called the Neighbor they were disappointed because their children wanted to care for the hamster for a day or 2. So I agreed to wait until Monday to pick up the Hamster. Monday evening when I was suppose to go get it. I forgot. They called me late that night and wondered if I was going to care for this hamster at all.

10)The Wednesday before school let out it was busy as usual. first I drop Kaitlyn off at gymnastics class and then I take Brianna to K3 dance class and then I have to go back and pick Kaitlyn up from gymnastics class and then get Brianna from Dance class and then we all go together to Kaitlyn's Basketball class. All after school activities seem to be scheduled on Wednesday. So as normal I did the routine. Dropped Kaitlyn off and then Biked with Brianna over to her dance class. She was biking really slow and I kept encouraging her to go fast because we needed to hurry or she would be late for class. Nothing can really speed up Brianna. I was trying to put a little speed into her anyways. We got to dance class a little late and I needed to hurry to the store to get food for dinner before I picked up Kaitlyn from class. I had Brianna park her bike outside and told her to run in to class as fast as she could and I took off. I was hurrying to do my other errands when my coat pocket begins to ring. I forgot I even had my cell phone in there. I answered it and it was someone from the dance school. Talking 100% in dutch of course letting me know there was no dance class and I needed to come back and get Brianna. I had forgotten that the last week they weren't going to have dance class. I had 10 minutes until Kaitlyn was out of gymnastics and I had to go back and get Brianna and the Bike ride back wasn't going to be fast. I went ahead and road my bike to meet Kaitlyn and told her to wait there until I got back and that I was going to be really late. That way she could finish class and change her cloths. I gave her a kiss and left. I road as fast as I could back and got Brianna, who had been in tears thinking that she had road her bike so slow to class that she missed it all together. My poor Brianna. We then road back and met Kaitlyn and headed off to basketball class. We dropped Kaitlyn off at Basketball and I took Brianna and Brooke with me to attempt to do our grocery shopping for dinner that didn't get done before. Somewhere in the store Brooke put down her sippy cup that she had been drinking her milk out of. I forgot she had one till we left and so we rushed back in to look for it. We searched each isle. I wouldn't have been so deligent but I only have 2 left she has lost all the other ones. We couldn't find it anywhere. I gave up and we had to leave and go get Kaitlyn but of course we were late again and my poor girl was waiting for us out in the cold with no jacket because I forgot I had it with me.

11)Some dear friends have dropped by with Christmas gifts and Christmas cards this year. I can't remember if I have sent them thank cards for them. I have some memory of doing some but I can't remember to who. So if you brought something by. Thank you.

12)I told friends I would send them information by email and I forgot to do it.

I know there is a much longer list of things I have forgotten but I have already forgotten that I have forgotten them. I hate that I get so forgetful.

So what is the point of this post. The point it to say I'm sorry to all of you who may have been forgotten in one way or another. I am sorry that my brain short-circuits. Please know you mean the world to me and as soon as I get my brain back and functioning, I hope to be a much better friend to you.

I really do hope you are having a very Happy Holidays! (Now I will post about the more enjoyable things that occur at Christmas).

Brooke and Sacrament meeting

I love my Brooke she is so full of personality and full of funny things she does all the time. But she is the most determined child also. This post is a record for her. So that when she is grown up and has kids I can say, You did the same thing!

Each week we struggle through sacrament meeting with her. The poor little girl gets so board so she struggles with sitting still. And a quite voice is not something this little girls has mastered.

Lets just talk about today's experience and you can imagine what every week must be like.

To understand today's experiences completely you have to understand this. We are in a small ward/Branch. We all fit in the chapel no problem. Our chapel has wood floors. No carpet so everything Echo's alot. And well there are not a lot of young kids in our ward. I guess there are more young kids then their are older kids but all the kids seem so well behaved. We just don't have the kid volume in our little branch that we had in our wards back home where there were so many kids making noise that our kid making noise wasn't really noticed. Our kid is certainly noticed.

Today we got to church early for tithing settlement. Which meant that boredom set in a little earlier than usual for my little toddler. Kind of before the opening prayer was even said. So by time the sacrament came around there was no hope at keeping her quite. My goal was to just keep her busy enough the she was distracted for the most part. But it didn't work. First she wanted her stickers put on her hands so I was helping her do that but I didn't do it just right so she shouts out... "NO OTHER ARM!" I tell her "o.k. but we have to shhhhhh. We can't talk so loud." So of course she talks louder for me because obviously I'm not understanding.

I get her stickers on the other arm and we have her quite for a second but then stickers get boring and she crawls up on my lap and looks directly in my faces and begins singing at the top of her voice. "I'M A GUMMY BEARS, O YES I'M A GUMMY BEARS, O I'M A YUMMY TUMMY FUNNY LUCKY GUMMY BEAR." ( for more of this song see link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC_hF31z130&feature=related ). Yes friends in the middle of the sacrament my little girl broke into the gummy bear song in the loudest voice possible. Yes, I wanted to laugh really hard. I was trying to help her be quite but the more I tried the louder she got.

I found a new different book of stickers and I sent her down to Brian to see if he might have more luck with entertaining her. She took her book of stickers down to dad but quickly returned with "mom, I can't find my monkey sticker." She was quite distressed by not being able to find her monkey. So I thought I had better help her look through these animal stickers and help her find the monkey. We looked together at the stickers I pointed out the bear and some other animals as we looked for a monkey and then she saw a Lion and she declared "WOW a LION! A LION SAYS RRRRROOOAARRRRRRRRR!". It was by far the longest loudest most excited roar, I had ever heard in my life. Had we not been in sacrament meeting, I would have been fulling entertained by her and even roared with her. But again I had to tell her that hear we had to be quite. Again, she was persistent in telling me exactly what a lion said.

I then had to go up to the front to sing a Christmas song with the relief society. It gave me a small bit of joy to leave her with Brian this time as usually it is Brian going to help with passing the sacrament and leaving me with this experience. Of course the whole time Brooke is yelling for "Mamma! Mamma!". So loudly that I could hear her clearly over the top of our choir performance.

After I came back and sat down she noticed Lucas. Lucas is a friend from nursery. A friend that was sitting in his chair just two rows up so nicely and so quietly. She yells "LUCAS!, LOOK MOMMA, ITS LUCAS!". I'm just wondering who spiked my child with caffeine in her genetics. Everything is on SUPER power.

That was it, I took her out to a class room and we stood in a corner together. I talked to her about quite voices. This isn't the first time. Every Sunday, we visit the corner in a classroom and talk about quite voices at least 1 time. Does it work no. We come back in and the same loud voice is used. But I feel like I have to try something.

Mahna-Mahna

I woke up this morning to the smell of smoke. I quickly ran down stairs to find that my Kaitlyn and Brianna had woken up early and decided they wanted to light all of moms candles. Of course one candle tipped over and then started the paper towel on fire and Kaitlyn rushed that to the sink and burnt her finger in the process. There was wax all over the table that Brooke was so nicely trying to wipe up.

Kaitlyn was given a long talk to about how she isn't allowed to touch the lighter that I use to light the kitchen oven with. We talked about how fires start and how we don't play with fire or candles when mom and dad aren't around to help when something happens.

My little girls needed some activities to do today otherwise it was going to be a very long Saturday. Usually I make sure they spend lots of time outside using up that energy but today it was 0 degrees Celsius or 32 degrees Fahrenheit all day long. Not the kind of weather you send your kids out playing in. It was just to cold. So we had to come up with some creative ideas.

Brian decided we needed to make another movie. The theme for the movie is Manha-Manha. For those not familiar with this fun Muppet's clip. You can watch it here on you tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTXyXuqfBLA

So here is our interpretation of the song. We had fun making our movie. I hope you enjoy watching it.

Crushes

Kaitlyn had two of her friends over for lunch today. Nina, Ines and Kaitlyn talked the whole time about kissing. Or at least that was the word I heard a lot.

I talked with Nina's mom and she told me about how she went with the kids on a class field trip this last week and how the girls were talking non stop about the boys they liked and about kissing and everything.

I thought about the fact that I have these girls over at my house almost everyday for lunch or after school to play. But because my Dutch is so immature I don't understand 1/2 of what they are saying. So here they have been talking this whole time about there crushes and stuff and I had no idea.

I feel like I'm missing out. So I though about the future and all the things I would miss out on knowing about because I don't understand Dutch well enough. I decided one of two things are just going to have to happen.

1- I'm going to have to become fluent in Dutch if we stay in this country. Not sure how to accomplish that as I feel rather incapable in the area of learning a foreign language.

or

2 - we need to go live in an English speaking country where our kids friends speak the language I understand! But I hate the idea of moving again so soon.

So it just leaves me to think for a while.

Kaitlyn

My Kaitlyn has been immune to boys and crushes for quite some time. I've watched as other kids girls her age developed crushed and even chased the boys on the play ground. But Kaitlyn has been pretty slow in coming into this stage.

As a mom I couldn't be happier. Today as I go to get Kaitlyn from class Stijn walks pass me and tells me "uw dochter heeft 14 keer .... " I couldn't catch the last of what he said but the first part was "your Daughter has 14 times...." So I'm trying to figure out what Kaitlyn had done 14 times that Stijn was trying to tell me about.

I got Kaitlyn and she told me that another girl Kathelijne in class and pushed her over and she hit her head and now she has a head ache. As I asked why, the story wasn't fitting together. So I asked what was Stijn trying to tell me that she had done 14 times. Kaitlyn said "I Don't want to tell you." I told her mom wouldn't be mad and it was okay. Finally she said she had kissed Stijn 14 times. I then asked if that is why Kathelijne pushed her (Kathelijne has liked Stijn since last year). Kaitlyn told me yes, Kathelijne didn't like that she was kissing Stijn so she came and pushed her off. So not only has Kaitlyn hit the crush stage with FULL force but she has already gotten into a girl fight over a boy.

Now I just have to figure out how to help her direct all of these feelings in a healthy productive way. New stages are always fun to enter and figure out.

Setting up our tree.

Now that SinterKlaas is over we can put up our Christmas tree and all of our decoration which is really the part I look forward to the most.

Last year I hit some after chirstmas sales and purchase some Christmas decorations for really cheap that were really pretty! I was looking forward to decorating the house with them this year. Especially the tree. I have had an idea of how I wanted to decorate my tree for years but I've never been able to because of 3 little hands that are constantly on my tree. But this year I was going to try. I did it with my butterflies and all red with a touch of gold. I love it. My girls declared, MOM, it is BOARING! (I wouldn't let them put anything silver on my tree and it made them so sad.) Now I just have to go fine something for the top of my tree. Last year we had a silver star and it just doesn't fit into my decorations this year. So I will have to go hunting for something Gold or red or both.

So here is a picture of my tree in all of its glory before the little hands of my house begin to undecorate it one bulb at a time.

SinterKlaas Came!

Friday night was fun. SinterKlaas arrived and the girls were so fun. We ate dinner and then I had them sing there songs about Sinterklaas. They have so many different songs that they sing about Sinterklaas. They are suppose to sing them really loud so that Sinterklaas can hear them and come. Here is a link that gives you a nice sample of a lot of the songs.

http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=iBy5J2QOkUc

One of the girls favorite songs or maybe it is just the one they know the best says something like this:

Sinterklaas please enter with your helper
Because we’re all sitting in a nice manner

Maybe you have a little bit of time
Before you go to Spain again
Do drop by our place
And leave your horse outside
And we’re singing and we’re jumping and we are so happy
Since there are no naughty children present
And we’re singing and we’re jumping and we are so happy
Since there are no naughty children present

(This is what it looks like in Dutch just so you can see if you are interested otherwise just skip it.)
Sinterklaasje kom maar binnen met je knecht
Want we zitten allemaal even recht

Misschien heeft U nog even tijd
Voordat U weer naar Spanje rijdt

Kom dan ook even bij ons aan
En laat je paardje maar buiten staan.

En we zingen en we springen en we zijn zo blij
Want er zijn geen stoute kind’ren bij

En we zingen en we springen en we zijn zo blij
Want er zijn geen stoute kind’ren bij

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The singing song part was fun because they are runing around in circles singing as loud as they can and then right in the middle of it, I simply said "did you hear that?"

Brianna of course says "yes" I heard the horse on the roof. Kaitlyn says she heard a big bang. And honestly it was perfectly silent and there was no noise but they had all sorts of noises in their heads.

So they ran up to the actict and found the Sinterklaas sack full of gifts and brought it down. They were so excited. They had even more stories about how they were right about the noise they had heard when they got down stairs. It is funny how much they believe.

Opening the SinterKlaas Sack

Opening Gifts

Brooke playing with her cars. She loves cars!

Brooke playing with her My Little pony stickers with Dad!

Kaityn and Brianna playing with their gifts amongst the mess. It was a fun night.

It's been an long embarrassing day!

So how can this cute picture have anything to do with an embarrassing day? Let me just tell the story.

It started off this morning somehow we were late for school. I got up early enough for me to get a shower and get the girls ready and everything but however things happened It was 15 mins until time to go Brooke wasn't ready to go to preschool yet and I still hadn't had my shower. I decided to skip my shower and get Brooke ready. I figured I could get my shower after I dropped everyone off at school. It would be more relaxing then anyways. I threw on some old cloths, I figured it didn't matter because I was putting on my huge coat over the shirt anyways and no one would see what I was wearing underneath. I splashed my face with water and put on some lip gloss and pulled my desperately needed to be washed hair into a ponytail. I figured I would look good if anyone glanced at me and I would make sure I wouldn't stop and talk to anyone so no one would notice! We were quickly off to school but we were late anyways, even with all my appearance/time cutting efforts.

I get Kaitlyn and Brianna to class and last was to drop Brooke off to preschool. As I walked her into her class her teacher said "You did read the flier that you HAVE TO STAY today because SinterKlaas is coming". I said no, I didn't get this flier. Turns out they put this flier in Brooke's backpack and I just didn't look in there and see it. So I suggested to her teacher that maybe I should run home real quickly and get Brooke's Zwarte Pete outfit. They said no need Brooke has made a Zwarte Pete hat that she can wear. I was out of ideas. We had to just stay. I had to take my coat off and of course I had to talk to people with my old dirty shirt on that didn't match my pants. With my unwashed hair and unmake-uped faced which I was pretty sure I had a little bit of yesterday's mascara smeared under my left eye. And of course I hadn't eaten breakfast and I was hungry. For the first 20 mins I just wanted to hide but then I thought there is nothing I can do about it I'm stuck here for 2 hours so lets talk with the moms and enjoy are time.

Brooke was excited that I got to stay there with her. I was glad to spend the time with her. It was fun to see Sinterklaas come. I was so sad not to have my Camera. Brooke was a bit scared of him but she was excited to get her treats and gifts.

She got let out of Preschool early and so we literally ran to the store to get the items I needed to buy for Sinterklaas to arrive at our house tomorrow and to get bread to eat for lunch. I had to get them before I picked up the girls from school at lunch. It was the last chance I had.

As soon as we were done with that we ran home and I jumped in the shower. I couldn't handle doing anything more today looking the way I did. I showered in record speed and got dressed and ran back to school to pick up Brianna from school. I was only about 5 mins late. I felt so bad. But I HAD to shower. Brianna and I ran home and Kaitlyn stayed at school for lunch because I had to take Brianna to the speech therapist.

I made lunch as fast as possible and then put us all on our bikes to go but it started snowing as we were riding to the speech therapist office. Brianna declared it was too cold and she couldn't keep riding her bike. We have been having some problems with our car and can't drive it right now. So we didn't have a choice we had to be on our bikes and we had to go. I kept encouraging her to keep going and telling her she was doing such a good job. Finally we made it to the speech therapist office, all snowed covered and about 10 mins late, being late is so much fun when they tell you "je ben te laat" (you are late), in not the happiest of tones.

After school Kaitlyn's friend invited her over to her house to play. I let her go thinking Brian could pick her up on his way home from work. But turns out Brian has a work party that starts at 5:00 and he wont be coming home. That means I'm going to have to walk all the way over to her house with my girls in the cold snow rain and walk all the way back.

I give up! It is just going to be one of those days.

---------

So in the end I surive the day and I put the girls to bed. As we are brushing our teath I look in the mirror to see that my mascra is smeared down my face. I'm not sure how long it had been that way but apparently I had been out in the snow and rain too much. I think of all of the people I interacted with today and wonder how many of them got to see me with a beautiful smear of mascra down my left check? Today is truely a day to remember!

It snowed again

Yes we had another snow day! The girls made the biggest snow ball they could! They worked so hard at rolling it! They did it all by themselves with no help. I was proud of them when they rolled it in the back gate to show it to us. -- Of course I made them come in for a warm shower after the picture and some hot chocolate to warm them up. They looked so cold and wet.

Thanksgiving Day

Since the girls had school and Brian had work Thanksgiving Day was simple. I ask the girls what they wanted for dinner and of course they wanted to make their own PIZZA! So that is what we did. We let them each make their own pizza and then made cookies afterwords. It was a very nice evening. We talked about it being Thanksgiving. We mostly talked to our family at home since 4pm our time is 8 am Arizona time. We began calling home around 4pm and between cooking everything we talked to our family. The girls loved it. We had a wonderful night of fun and talking to family. It was a good day.

9 years!

On November 19th Brian and I celebrated our 9 year Anniversary! Yea us!!!!! I had tried several options for Baby sitters however due to it being a Wed. night all the girls in the ward had young women. (If anyone has any tips on how to get a babysitter in this country please let me know, I'm not having any luck!)

Brian and I had given up any hope of having a date by our selves. I was talking with Kerri from church asking if she had any suggestions of anyone I could try and another friend from church (Kaylynn) heard us talking and said "I'll do it". I said really, no we can't have you do it. But she was serious and willing to help out and do it. She was wonderful. She came and read with the girls and the girls loved it.

Kaylynn is a school teacher at the American school and she was able to give me ideas of how to help my girls with their reading. She was such a blessing that night in so many ways.

Brian and I enjoyed a night out with dinner and walking around Leiden and just talking and being together. We did window shopping and had so much fun. It was so nice to just be alone with him. It has been so long since that has happened.

Thank you Brian for Marring me 9 years ago!

Let it Snow

We got our first Snow of the year! We loved it! It Snowed all day on Sunday. We didn't get as much snow as some other towns around us did. A lot of places got a lot of snow and even got to build snow men. We didn't get that much snow. But we did get enough that the girls were able to make snow balls and through them at me while I was trying to take there pictures.

The girls loved it that it was snowing and sat and watched it through the window. When it finally started sticking to the ground they ran outside and and began with the snowballs. It was a good day. We look forward to the next snow fall.

Zwarte Pete's Visit

Zwarte Pete comes to visit ever Saturday night for 3 weeks before the Great arrival of Sinterklaas on December 5. The kids are suppose to leave there shoes out by the door with something in it for Sinterklaas and his horse. Zwarte Pete checks to see if you have been good and takes the items to Sinterklaas and leaves some little treat in your shoe.

Since we are not perfectly Dutch we do this a little different. We bought wooden shoes because the idea of putting treats in the shoes the girls have been wearing all day just really grossed us out. We put the wooden shoes on top of the dryer in the Attic next to the little skylight window. We told the girl the Zwarte Pete comes in threw that window and checks and sees if there room is clean and that is how he knows if they have been good. EVERY Saturday my girls clean there room with out complaint this time of year.

In the shoes they leave pictures for Sinterklaas and a list of what they would like him to bring. I can of course easily take these things from the shoes and put them into my "needs to be scrapbook box" in the attic. (The box is pretty full! It is sad how I don't scrap book, with out my friends and my sister it just isn't any fun doing it alone.)

Brian and I put little candies in there shoes for them to find on Sunday morning. They are extra excited about waking up for church!

On the Evening on December 5th they will also find a bag full of gifts sitting on the dryer up in the attic that Sinterklaas left while we were eating dinner. More like mom put there while they were at school but you know how it all works.

I did my Sinterklaas shopping this week. I'm proud to say that I was able to get some fun gifts for everyone for under 30 euro's. (think of it as dollars). We figure they will be getting gifts at Christmas too. We don't need to over kill on the holidays. Just a few from Sinterklaas will do. I did find some really good deals that I'm more then proud of. Especially on Brian's gift. I'm looking forward to it!

My first time to Cook Thanksgiving Dinner

(Brooke sweetly helping me make dinner... It was better then her poking her fingers in it)

We decided this year that we wanted to have Thanksgiving dinner with friends who are closes to us. Those are the friends that live around us and we see each day. We invited over our closes friends to have a Thanksgiving dinner with us. (Marta was moving and wasn't able to come, we missed you Marta.) It turned out great! We couldn't do it on Thanksgiving day since the kids have school and everyone was working so we decided on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I must say that for the first Thanksgiving meal I have ever cooked all by myself it wasn't to much of a disaster. My gravy was a bit more soupy then I wanted and my pecan pie didn't quite turn out. It looked perfect on top but when we cut into it, instead of the nice jelly inside it was all soup. So back into the oven it went. By time the insides were jelly the top pecans were burnt. O well. I will have to try again. However the rest of the meal turned out great and I was proud!

Here are all the men talking and surrounding the food. They are a perfect group. Ulrike's Husband Johanna's is also a Physicist and works at ESTEC (European space Center our equal is NASSA.) Beate's Husband Micha is a Computer Science Engineer guy of some sorts and is programing all the time. (of course him and Brian have things to talk about) Karel who is Erna's ex-husband but still is very much involved in the family and comes to all the events which I think is really cool. He owns 3 auto Mechanic shops and loves racing. Brian's dad had a lot of the same interest so it is easy for Brian to talk there too. They seem to make a good group of friends.



When the kids first arrived we let them all make some feathered hats. We told them they could be the Indians at the dinner and we would be the Pilgrims. It made it a lot of fun for them. Brian told them the story in Dutch of the Pilgrims coming over. I was pretty proud of Brian doing that.

Here is a picture of all our dressed up Indians in their feathered hats. Don't they look wonderful.



Here are few more highlights Gabrialle is the star in the first picture and Ricadia is the star in the second.

Over all it was a wonderful night. I am grateful for my friends and for there love and support.

Visiting Sinterklas

We learned last year that when visiting Sinterklas that it was very important for the children to be dress up like Zwarte (black) Pete. This year I picked up some outfits for the girls that were really in-expensive that they could wear to all the little Sinterklas activities. I couldn't find anything for Kaitlyn though. She is too tall. Although all the other kids her age will be wearing out-fits and she is still young enough to be celebrating this activity, she is as tall as kids 2 years older then her.

So to have something for Kaitlyn to wear we did our best to put some sort of outfit together and make it up as we went. I bought some black hair for her but in the end she wouldn't wear it because daddy laughed at it and thought it was funny. Brianna was more then willing to wear the black hair and add it to her outfit.

First are pictures of the day when I brought home the new Zwarte Pete clothing. The girls all wanted to try it on they thought it was cool. Kaitlyn liked her black hair then.



Brooke is much to busy with her activity to let mom take a picture of her.



The day has come for us to go see Sinterklas. The girls have gotten there outfits perfected and I think they look great! It was a really fun program that went on and was a lot more intertaining then waiting in line to sit on Santa's lap. I must say I was impress. -- Brooke however wasn't so much impress. She kept sneaking off. They had punch in the back and she kept going to get a new cup of it. I was able to a few pictures of my sneaking child.



Here are a few pictures of the show. They had about 350 kids in the room that they were doing this show for.


At the end of the show Sinterklas comes. All the kids are so excited when he comes in. I saw him coming in the back door so I ran back and grab some pictures away from "most" of the crowd.



It is hard to show the true fun of what happens in a photo so I took a short film. It is a bit noisy but shows all the fun they were truely having. You can see the Zwarte (black) Pete's up on the stage and running around everywhere. It is just so weird. I still think I like Santa Clauses Elves better. At least it seems less prejustice