Oudjaar

A. mailed me yesterday she was engaged.
Although this was always meant to be and we had talked about their marriage before, it still came as a shock. A nice one! but still i felt weird all day. It really made me cry.
I don't know.
I am just getting old i suppose.

Then out of the blue, we had a snow blizard yesterday.
It had been on the news so R. left work early and made it home safely.
M. my brother-in-law had been watching the kids today so he was sent home early too and then R. went on his mission to get 'Oliebollen'.

Between man and wife certain chores are divided.
I buy and decorate a Christmas tree (and dismantled it later this afternoon). R. buys the oliebollen. Now you might wonder why this is such a big deal.
Well we have the beste oliebollenbakker of the Netherlands nearby.
As of the 30st of December ppl line up.
And i mean easily wait for 2 hrs to get 10 oliebollen.
So there you have it.
R. put on his hat and gloves and got us the oliebollen.


This morning he did the last shopping, while i cleaned up Jamies room who is to arrive tomorrow! I washed another laundry, ironed and then we put my colleagues car at Thea's (where you don't have to pay for parking).
On our way back the boys saw some ppl already lighting fireworks and kept nagging to have some too.
After trying to make them understand that this was only going to be lit at 12 tonight, we bought some too.
A historic moment, for as of now, we will let them stay up (if they can) and watch and light fireworks themselves.

Other news on the cat front: Martijn came over and we told him he'd better look for another address for Plien and Siemen.
They are still extremely frightened towards the kids. They blaze and are definitely not amused when one of them enters the room. When Martijn came, Siemen came out of his cabin for the very first time and even let me pet him!
If they were like this, we would love to keep them, but i don't think we are the best suitable family for them.

C.'s in the tub now, we're having the sandwich rolls and champaign for tonight ready, and i am slowly winding down.

For all of my 3 readers: be careful tonight, don't drink and drive and have a blast wherever you are !!

Freaky teeth and a white aftermath

For some time now, M. has been getting his "grote mensentanden".
The other ones however don't want to part so he's got 4 teeth downstairs now.

And this is what the garden looked like this morning.

Just our luck, a white Christmas aftermath.

And what have we done?

Around noon i remembered one of my collegueas was to come over to the office to hand in her lease car (her contract ended) so i rushed over, only to find she left the keys and papers in the mailbox.

Something else i found; we 'd had another burglary attack.
This time they tried to smash in one of the bigger front windows.
Hey ppl, it's Christmas, peace on earth!

After about 1 hr the windowpane man had made a need repair and i could go home to celebrate second Christmas day (jawel, overhere we have 2 Christmas days) with my family.
It was the first time i saw little Sam alive and i agree; he's adorable.
I'll let the pictures tell the story.

So this is Christmas

We have been doing a lot of Christmas related activities (stole that one, anyone?) lately.
Both in the office (driving around half the country to hand over bottles of wine, chocolates and cheeses) and at home.
The kids had a Christmas dinner at school last Wednesday for which the parents were asked to bake something. Now we've made the mistake to bake an apple pie for M. last year, so he immediately volunteered at the teacher, who put down my name for 2 pies (this will be fun next year when C. is also at that school).
The resulsts (this word looks very strange) were OK and when i brought them over Wednesday night they were hyper excited.

2 other hyper excited creatures here in our house are Siemen and Plien.
That same wednesday night i called a vet coz they still had hardly eaten or drunk. She advised to change the food (which is rather difficult coz Siemen has some bladder problems and can only have specified food) and said that if things hadn't changed by Friday we had to come over.
TG they ate that night.
two days later they even let themselves be patted by R. who got a bit over eager and tried to pull Plien to his lap while he was behind the computer. Not only did she put her nails into his hand, she peed all over him!

Yesterday, Chirstmas eve i went to the hairdresser (am a sort of orange now according to the boys) bought the last presents, R. went to pick up the van (losing the key only cost us a mere 300 euro's) and did the last groceries. My hero for that one.
We decided the cats were really getting used and could do with some exercise so last night we opened the room to their door. We closed all the others and found one of them this morning down stairs behind a soundbox and the other up here!


i didn't even know anything/one could get up that chimney !
We've been living here for 6,5 yrs now and never used it.
And if Siemen hadn't run over the little fence that is in front of it, R. would never have looked overthere in the first place.
Armed with towels around his arm and gloves on, he managed to get him out and get the most dirt out of him.
This whole cat idea of mine is proving to be not my smartest one.

Later that morning presents were unwrapped, we visited T. my mother-in-law and had a peaceful X-mas dinner.

my 30 seconds claim to faim

We have been on the telly.
For those of you who missed it click this one

OK where were we

Right, i had lost our car key.
I let the air out of 2 tires (which in itself is risky enough, sitting alongside your car when it's getting dark and cars rush by over the Beukelsdijk) and have been looking outside the window the whole evening. By then it was clear the garage couldn't get hold of a key before Monday and the police couldnot/wouldnot do anything. R. had called them to ask for a wielklem, so the car couldn't be moved but they could not be persuaded.
He had a meeting scheduled that evening but skipped it to get C. who was at my mother's. When he arrived there, my mother asked if he could be a little earlier next time and why wasn't I there. (and yes I had explained we had lost our key)

Next day, car still there.
I rent a Twingo.

Saturday.
T. has a judo exam at 9, M. at 11.30
Great planning.
T. and R. go for the first trip and we decide that i take M. and C. for M.s exam.
Again he was a bit nervous, but especially in the beginning did great. Then he had to roll the other boy over and he looked as if he had never done that before.
In the end though, everybody got their orange slip.
Hoorayy!!!

Sunday morning i iron a shitload of laundry (nice, lice!) and in the afternoon Martijn and the cats arrive. He puts the 2 baskets inside (we have Plien the girl left here and her brother Siemen right). Plien escapes after a few minutes and crawls into the smallest and nearest hole she can find. Siemen thinks its safest to stay where he is.

In the evening we put them both in the room i am typing this all in and during the night we hear all sorts of new noises coming from the attick, underneath our bed, the hallway, and so on.

At 5.16 R. decides to catch them.

And fails.
We decide to let it go, besides we have to go to work and that evening when i have brought Lucas, one of the boys' friends over to our place, coz his parents had some babysitting problem (o yeah, i forgot, my babysitter called sunday afternoon that she was sick and was going to be so for the next day and the day after, so sorry, but C. was no longer her problem)

Err...where was i.

O ja, that evening R. decides to give it another go. We find Plien hidden between the closest in our bedroom and the window (a 5 cm space) and her brother hidden up in Abigails room between the books and a crate. Again a 5 cm space. We chase them down and lock them up in this very room i am typing.

They haven't really eaten for 3 days now, nor drunk. We are going to keep them in this room untill they are totally at ease with it, untill they eat and drink and we think they are up for the rest of the house.

shitterdeshitshit

while picking up the boys from school i lost the one and only carkey we have.
it's such a beehive in and around school with parents, teachers and kids running around that i didn't even hear them fall.
now someone might be walking around with our key (and attached alarm!!!)

i let the air out of 2 tires so driving away will be difficult but i am scared shitless that someone will simply wait till it's dark, then try out the alarm in our street to see which car beeps and take it away.

i have faxed my drivers licence and the licence for the car to the dealer in order to ask for new keys but this may take several days.

i cannot pickup C from my mothers so R. has skipped his meeting he had planned this evening to get her now.

tomorrow i have several appointments for which i need a car. I've already informed if i can rent something on such a short notice and they'll ring me back tomorrow.

O man

Lice and Life in general

R. is 42.
And recently back to working.
In Amsterdam this time.
Which is about 60 kilometers from Rotterdam where we live and can be done in 1 hr.
Can be done but hardly ever.
Usually it takes him 2 hrs or more.

So this morning he took his first motor driving lesson.
Talking 'bout mid life crisis

M. has been treated twice, we have been de-liced once, but yesterday evening after a new check up i went mad.
I had real lice coming out of my hair.
Not just the eggs, but crawling beasts.

AAAARGGHHHH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I put everyone in the tub and smeared some aggressive stuff into our hair (T. was the only one i couldn't find anything on) that had to air for at least 2 hrs (meaning the kids went to bed way later than usual) because you had to let your hair dry naturally and not use a blowdryer or something like that.
This morning we all rose early to shampoo and comb and check and guess what i found on T.
Right.
So the boys had a chocolate for breakfast coz i was too busy de-licing and combing (i almost passed out every time i checked the comb) to be bothered with sandwiches.
I have changed all the beds, the cuddles and towels again, and will probably be washing till midnight to get everything done.
Just what i needed in these hectic weeks before Christmas.

Pirates, a freezer and a Christmas tree

I guess that sums up our weekend pretty much. Here we go.










O yeah and then we bought a freezer this morning.

T.'s 5th birthday

5 yrs ago he came out with his bottom first.
Now he's breakdancing on it.
See for yourself

Admiring Batman Enjoying his burger


What did i tell you;
His brother M. and sister joining in .

You'd say he realized he looked like a ...like a.... but no, he's deadly serious here and thinks he's mister Cool number 1.

Sinterklaas

Yesterday afternoon my mother and granddad arrived and after I had taken my mother to show her the schools of the kids (she is going to pick them up as of today) there was a loud bang on the door and someone rang the bell several times.
A mysterious letter fell into R.'s hand explaining that although his birthday wasn't untill tomorrow, Sinterklaas already gave some families their presents today, coz tomorrow it would simply be too busy to visit everyone.

What a luck we had. We got our presents one day earlier. Yippie !!

2 hrs and 5 (seriously!) binbags later we were done.
M. had (amongst others) gotten his batmobiel (batman's car) and T. his Spiderwebcostume. C. had gotten a new jacket and some Dora things. R. and i had our pantoffels, opa his sweater and my mum a scarf and matching gloves.






Dag Sinterklaasje, dag, dag, dag, dag, zwarte piet.
dag sinterklaasje dag, dag, luister naar ons afscheidslied.

Sinterklaas judo tournament

After the weighing (M. weighs almost 23 kilo's and T. exactly one kilo less) all the children (and i mean A LOT of children) were divided in 3 groups. Here you see them in the middle looking anxiously around.
Then the Zwarte Pieten entered the room and turned out to be the referees.
Here's M. first fight

And here you see T. winning his first!

Finally Sinterklaas entered the room

And medalles were handed out. M. was thrilled (coz he lost his 2 fights) to receive his.