December 2017

The boys are no longer using their "baby chairs" for breakfast and we now have a routine where the kids sit next to each other.

Today they had muesli (though Leo preferred rondjes) and we read the Christmas story by Dick Bruna.

We both had a day off today and we started preparing for Christmas. Compared to two years ago we're taking it much slower -- it's easy to be overly ambitious this season but there's really no benefit in it.

We had a nice and relaxed day. In the morning I bought grape leaves with the guys. Normally I'm always in a rush when shopping and it was so nice to have time with them. They wanted their own karretje? No problem. They wanted to see the car toys? No problem.

Yesterday we were at Lubber Run, today we walked at Bluemont Park.

In our hearts we wanted a big Christmas tree, in our minds we knew that's not optimal with two-year old twins in the house.

Last year we had a small table top model that the boys couldn't reach, which was safer but not quite as nice. This year we compromised and got a medium sized tree, which is actually very nice. It was much easier to carry and set up, for one thing, and it's just as pretty.

The kids were very excited about having a tree, and on Monday night we went to Home Depot together to buy one. The electric saw there made a big impression.

Over the next few days we've been setting it up and decorating it, and we're pretty much done now. There's a good chance one or two of the decorations will break in the next few days, but that's a price worth paying. In any case I've been having repeated discussions with the boys about appropriate behavior towards the tree. "Mag je aan de boom trekken? Nee! Mag je de boom aaien? Ja."

I actually lost the pictures we took during pakjesavond this year, which doesn't happen often. Oh well, it's the memories that count and it was a lovely evening (picture here is from the Embassy event a week earlier).

It was the first year that the boys really realized that "Sinterklaas would arrive" and when there was knocking on the front door everybody was quite excited. Adrian was disappointed that Piet and Sinterklaas weren't going to make an actual appearance but the big bag with gifts compensated for that nicely.

Nora received several books. But let her tell the story herself:

"De meeste dingen van mijn kado-en waren boeken. Een van de boeken was een, uh, voorleesboek en een andere was Bas en andere was a sticker boek en we hebben allemaal, behalve de jongens, een chocolade letter gekregen. De jongens en pappa hadden Lego gekregen. De jongens kregen allebei een Boer Boris. Een van die Boer Borrissen was Boer Boris en het gebroken been, de andere was, Boer Boris gaat naar Oma".

We celebrated pakjesavond a little later than usual, since December 5th is on a Tuesday. But that worked out well since we started Sinterklaas late also -- we waited with schoen zetten until after Thanksgiving.