some pictures...

... to document some of July's better moments. 

Our visit to the indoor playground at the Zuiderpark. This was their 12th go around the tracks and judging from Max' expression I think he was starting to get motion sickness.

Chillin'.

Watching movies.

Riding bicycles.

Seeing what our house looks at night like from the roof terrace. Pretty ominous huh?

More chillin'.

Going upstairs to find that Lara made our bedroom 'gezellig' for us.

Stacking the kids.

Getting Elliot to 'talk'.

Finally getting started on the tree mural I've had in my head for nearly a year now.

(I still have a million branches to do. The foliage will be an ongoing seasonal project for the kids. They can decorate it with blossoms, leaves, birds, hearts, Christmas ornaments, Easter eggs, etc.)

music monday V1.4

Today's music video isssss......

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....

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You might be thinking to yourselves 'My, what an odd music video for this week!' and I would completely understand if that's the case. There is a method to my madness though!

Not too long ago we discovered that our 'super-deluxe shower' (read: piece of utter crap only slightly more practical than a shirt without arm holes) was leaking all over the place, but mainly INTO our wall, causing us and our lovely neighbors the Turks water damage. Since then the nasty thing was removed and for a while all we had was the bath and a small handheld showerhead for rinsing your hair etc.
Then I thought... wait a minute. When I have this baby I won't be able to have baths for a while because of danger of infections and general grossness (which is why girls prefer not to have baths during 'that time' of the month). But I don't have a shower. And I certainly don't want to have to squat in the bath and kind of hold the handheld over my head to get clean for 6 weeks or more! So I kindly asked Sander to fix the situation.

And fix it he did.
Check out the new shower, as modelled by my mom, Sander and myself:

Unfortunately most of these weren't taken at the best angle to show off the exact height of where Sander attached the shower head to the wall. I just thought you should know that if you ever need to have a shower at our house, and are under 1m90/6ft2", you're going to need a step to adjust this baby to your liking.

kicking the habit?

For those of you who are becoming worried about my seemingly neglected crocheting habit, I have here a picture of comfort. I'm still at it! Just have to take some time to take some semi-decent shots of the projects I have been working on. They're coming though, you may now exhale.

You see, my priorities have shifted somewhat over the past weeks, to this:

... and this:

... and many more fun things in the category of home improvement. Lara loved keeping me company while ironing her new curtains, which probably has something to do with the fact that I let her climb the ladder to get an even better view of the snowy surroundings outside.

This has got to be the whitest winter we've had in a few decades here in Holland. We've been loving it but yesterday, for the first time, I heard Julia say that she was done with the snow now and would like it to get warmer. Lara then continued musing on how come even though it was so cold, she never saw any icicles anywhere. She quickly decided to her contentment that icicles only grow in Friesland. (Fries (vries) = freeze)

A mother, a paintbrush, a brother and some ailments...

... in no particular order. These have been the things that have kept us busy throughout most of January, and busy we have been!

On the 14th my mom arrived at Schiphol Airport after 2 days of travelling. She was flying stand-by and was unable to get onto her connecting flight in Atlanta because it had been overbooked. I didn't like having to wait for her a whole other day, just as she didn't like having to ask a big black man called François to give her a ride to a nearby hotel. But hey, we managed (and survived!). I'm loving having her here for the following reasons:
1. She brought me a bunch of American treats, and a whole lot of clothes (mostly for the kids! Yay!). I have to say thank you to Marissa for the clothes as well. They're wonderful!

2. She brought Mad Libs and we've been playing a lot of them.

3. I can talk to her all the time!

4. She doesn't mind babysitting while I'm off painting/seeing a movie/napping.

5. She cooks dinner. Yum.

6. We have adventures and laugh a lot :)

7. She's my mommy and I love her and miss her when she's not around!

This is an old photo but until I have some new pictures of all that painting that has been going on in the upstairs, this one will have to do! Just imagine me 5 months pregnant, and with white paint everywhere. We've had a few people come and help over the past week (thank you's to Loek, Emily, Marianne, Maarten, Lisa and Api!) and we were able to get SO much done. Basically all the walls and ceilings are now finished, including the staircase. Next up is all the woodwork, which I personally find more of a challenge... but with a little bit of luck a few more of my wonderful, beautiful, amazing and talented friends (if you feel this applies to you, you know what to do) will come over and lend a hand!

One thing is for certain: This baby tumbling about inside of me is not shy at ALL. It took the ultrasound technician exactly 0.15 seconds to find out if this baby would a)tie the score, or b)forever tip the scales in favor of the gals. So I am happy to report that come early June, we'll be welcoming a second little boy into our hectic home! We have balance again, Sander did the dance of joy, and I wasn't even surprised at the news. This pregnancy is exactly like the one with Max, and nothing like the ones with the girls.... score intuition!

Alright readers (that's me being overly optimistic about having more than one?), I'll go easy on you concerning the last topic to cover. Definitely no pictures, and I'll keep all descriptions down to a minimum. Suffice it to say that Lara and I spent a good 24 hours 'lightening our loads' and needed a lot of extra tender love and care! Then to top things off, I got another one of my infamous tooth aches and finally decided that enough was $#&#*$ enough! I googled my way into a new dentist's office and was actually treated really well! Something I'm not accustomed to when it comes to dentists. I bravely suffered through a root canal treatment and am happy to report: the pain has left the building. Maybe this will be the year for my teeth to shine like I've always known they were intended to! I think a celebration is in order.... this calls for one thing, and one thing only. Oh Yes. Steve Martin in a white coat. Enjoy!

and a blue one...

... and they're all made out of ticky tacky lalalala

Finished another one yesterday! Only one more to go.. can you guess which color it will be? All the other moms and dads at school think my kids have such a punk mother, pink fringe one day, green one the next, week after that a blue one. I really need to start tying my hair back better while painting!

This weekend we hosted a barbecue at the park to celebrate the wonderful summer we have had in Holland and the fact that my dear husband is turning 30 this year (not till October, but feel free to start teasing him about hitting the big three-oh now). The weather forecast had been looking horrid all week but we kept the faith and had a great sunny time, and didn't even manage to set the park on fire, which seemed strangely disappointing to some...

And a green one..

Second chair finished! 

They're going to look great all finished and around the dinner table, can't wait to be able to show that shot. There's also a yellow one all done and painted but for that one I'm still figuring out what to do with the cushioning cause it's a completely different chair. You know what? Here's a pic of how it is now and you can tell me if you have any ideas? Plenty of that cute fabric left to work with....

Whaddaya think?

pink chair!!

OK are you ready? Here is the before shot:

 

Dull, brown, old-fashioned... in short: everything I'm not. But lo and behold with a little bit of love and a whole lot of 'DON'T TOUCH THAT CHAIR, IT'S WEEEET'..... I give you: 

The Pink Chair!! *HAPPY* Doesn't it just look good enough to eat? It was a bit of an ordeal to get it to look this way (tip: don't buy oil based primer and water based paint) but I really love the result. I reupholstered the seat using loverly Ikea fabric that just so happened to feature all of the colours I wanted to use for the chairs. One down, three to go. I've already finished painting two others actually (green and yellow) but need to finish the seats, so expect more yummy pics soon. Oh an here is what I look like when painting:

On to a different subject: I do not like selfish people. Not one bit! Alas I have to deal with them every single day. I have therefore decided to start countering their nastiness with a benign radiance that I'm sure will just knock their annoying selfish socks off. I will give you a practical example. Yesterday my family and I were doing our weekly grocery shopping. It was Saturday and this particular shopping center has very little parking available. As we drove over we all had silent prayers in our hearts pleading for a spot, any spot, it didn't even have to be near the store... really! Well, our prayers were answered, but we didn't feel too smug about it. Some very selfish person had that decided his or her car deserved extra space so we had to squeeze into
this spot:

So you can imagine what I did! YES! I put on my happy face and decided to express my feelings in a kind, and uplifting manner to our parking-neighbour by leaving a jolly little note. 

I will translate for all ye who do not speak Dutch. 

It says: "Thank you for your wonderful  s p a c i o u s parking!"

Ah, between this act of kindness and my pink chair, the world feels like a better place.