Birthday Catch-up...Myra

I would just like to know what happened here! Where in the world did the past year go? 2010 flew by faster than any other year. I really can't believe my baby girl is already ONE.

We started out the day with a little shopping at the mall. Myra picked out a cookie. :)

Then she took a little snooze when we picked up Jimmy from school. Doesn't she look so cozy?

Birthday outfit from Gma & Gpa Lovelace

Myra's brothers had a good time wrapping up presents for her and drawing her pictures on the wrapping paper.

Of course we had to make Myra a birthday hat because she loves to put on hats.

More pictures of the adorable one...

When Daddy got home the little boys helped Myra open her presents. She loved her kitten that Jimmy picked out for her.

Then it was cake time...does this cake scream "girl" or what? haha, that's what you get after having 2 boys. When she was first born I dressed her in only pink or purple. I've relaxed quite a bit and she even wears blue (*gasp*) pajamas from time to time. :)

Myra needed her big strong brothers to help her blow out her candles. Don't you love their wife-beater tanks and shaggy hair? Their kool-aid smiles just top the look off!

She's wondering what this stuff is...

...and thinking she doesn't like it so much. I think she tried a total of one bite and the rest ended up on the floor. She was really annoyed that it stuck to her hands!

Do you know why we took this picture? Well if you remember, this was the exact spot where Myra was born. Right there on my bedroom floor in between my bed and my "closet" was where she entered this world.

If you missed that exciting story...click here for "Myra's Grand Entrance" and here for "Daddy's Version" of the story.

My little baby is not so little any more. :(

Yes, it's cliche, but it seems like yesterday I was snuggled up to my brand new baby daughter...still in shock from her crazy fast birth and so totally in love right from the start.

My Myra Girl, I am so excited to see what 2011 holds for us.

You make me happy beyond belief.

Birthday Catch-up...Jimmy

Now it's Jimmy's turn! Jimmy turned 5 in November and we got to celebrate it for 3 days! Saturday was his party with his friends, Sunday he opened family gifts, and Monday he took treats to his school class.




Jimmy said he wanted a Lego party so I searched the internet for ideas. I was quite surprised how many cute ideas there were. The cake was simple yet when I asked Jimmy if it looked like a Lego he said, "Um, kind of." haha, well, I'm no cake decorator so that worked for me.

I printed mini Lego coloring books. Link here.

Also printed the Lego man boxes and filled them with candy for the kids. Link here.

The Lego trucks were one of the prizes from the games we played. Idea here.



The kids colored these characters and I had hole punched the bottoms of them so we could stick a Lego on each side and they would stand up. Idea from here.

We didn't get any pictures of the kids playing the games because our hands were too busy to snap pictures! I had hid a bunch of duplo Legos around the room and the kids searched for them and saw who could find the most. Also we did a "Lego drop" where the child stood on a chair and there was a jar on the ground where they tried to drop the Legos into it...the kids really liked this one.

Opening gifts got a little crazy. All ten kids crowded around Jimmy and were yelling in Dutch and shoving presents in his face! All of his presents were Legos except one (a puzzle). He was of course absolutely thrilled about this!

Then time to sing "Lang zal ze leven, lang zal ze leven ... Hieperdepiep, Hoera!!!"

Only two kids wanted cake and ice cream. The others all wanted to play instead. So they all ran off to destroy the house and over time a few came back downstairs and ate some cake! They had a great time.

Building with the new Legos

We had kids turned into superheroes and kids "fixing" my walls with the toy hammers! And of course every toy had to be out of the bucket/basket. :)

I had many party games planned and we played a few but the kids didn't want to play any of my games any more. They preferred to run around. Then they decided to go outside and see if they could fit all 10 of them on the playhut at the same time! Only one child cried in the process...success.

And they all went home with nice filthy hands. I'm sure their parents loved me for that! But they really did have a great time!

Then Sinterklaas came to Hesseplaats (our local shopping area) so the boys and I headed there to see him and the Zwarte Pieten. The boys were sad they didn't get to get close to him. It's not like in the US where you get to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what you want.

On Sunday Jimmy opened the gifts from family.

Glade was sad because Jimmy was getting all these presents and Jimmy so sweetly handed one of the boxes of Legos to Glade and said, "Here Glade, this one is for you!" Awww, one of those moments as a parent where you feel you must be doing something right! Either that or the kid just got too many birthday gifts...we'll go with the former. ;)

And finally on Monday Jimmy got to take a snack to his classmates. Some people go all out on the "traktaties" but this year I didn't. I was worn out from the party so we just made apple cinnamon muffins and called it good!

And here he is Monday after school. Tired, you think?! :) What a fun weekend we had with our Jimmy. He is such a kind and generous boy.

We love him a lot.

Happy Birthday Jimmers!

Birthday Catch-up...Glade

Now that all my kids have had their birthdays, I think it's about time I blog about it! We'll start with Glade. He turned 3 in October! We had a day all focused on whatever Glade wanted to do. On the way home from dropping Jimmy off at school, we stopped in the store and Glade got to do the grocery shopping. As you can see, he has very good taste!


Then we watched movies, played trains, and ate junk food all morning until it was time to pick up Jimmy from school. He decided he wanted to wear his birthday hat in the bike!


We played and watched more movies and ate more junk and waited until Daddy got home for the party. Then Jimmy helped Glade open his presents. He got Legos and Toy Story toys...his two favorites right now. Oh and some little mini cars. Glade loves anything little he can shove in his pockets or carry around the house in a little bag.


It was kinda funny that Jimmy was more excited about opening Glade's gifts than Glade was! Good thing Glade is (pretty) good about sharing. :)


We love our little goof (or as the boys say it "doof"). For dinner he wanted hot dogs, french fries, and chicken nuggets. Delish!



Putting in those 3 candles...


I think we sang Happy Birthday about 7 times that day!


And he was SO fast at blowing out those candles. The second we finished singing they were out! I only captured the smoke!





Happy Birthday to Glade! You are such a sweet boy. You will always be my "wittle" boy. Love you! I'm so thankful for you...and thankful that you don't decide what we eat every day...I think I was a little sick after a day of junk food and hot dogs!

Difference #7

#7. School Sibling Pictures

It's standard here to get sibling pictures taken when school pictures are taken. I didn't realize they were going to do this until I picked Jimmy up from school. Glade was not excited about it and strangely enough he ended up smiling the best in the picture! It's not the best picture, but it's always fun to have a picture with all 3 of them in it.

While I'm at it, I'll just post the other two school pictures we got:


Class picture...too bad like 4-5 kids are missing.


And here's Jimmy, age 5. I think it's a pretty adorable first school picture!

They start elementary school here at age 4. Thus they have children starting school all throughout the school year since they come in on their birthday. Jimmy just barely missed the school pictures last year.

In the beginning the kids usually go just in the mornings for the first few days or weeks depending on the child. Then they are at school all day Mon-Fri (except early out days). I think it's too much at such a young age, but thankfully Jimmy has really enjoyed it. He's been in school now for one year and it's weird to think that if we were living in the states he wouldn't start going to elementary school until fall 2011...and wouldn't start going all day long until fall 2012 (that's 3 years later than he started here). I don't like my kids growing up so quickly.

I had a parent/teacher conference last week and Jimmy's teachers said he is doing great! He is speaking so much more Dutch and makes a lot more comments in class now. Last year Jimmy was very quiet in school and actually got into quite a few arguments (we think because he couldn't understand the kids and they couldn't understand him). He's doing so much better now. He really looks forward to school and has learned so much. I love hearing him speak in Dutch and sing in Dutch...so cute!

It's funny because Jimmy often starts jabbering on and on in Dutch and Jarom will just look at me because he has now clue what his son is saying! Guess he's gotta learn Dutch too. :)

Here are links to Difference #6, Difference #5, Difference #4, Difference #3, Difference #2, Difference #1.

Germany: Movie Park

This is my last post of summer vacation pictures! Can you believe it? I thought I'd never finish. Well we may have overdone it a little with the amusement parks, but we all had such a good time. Our last stop was Movie Park in Germany.

Jimmy was a little cautious at first in jumping but towards the end he was having a blast!

More driving...Glade is just thrilled!

We had such a wonderful summer and feel so blessed that we got to see so many family members...and so many cool places too.

Cologne, Germany

With a few more days left of our vacation, we stopped in Cologne, Germany.
Here's the Cathedral of Cologne (Dom). It is so huge!

This is possibly one of my favorite pictures from the summer...so sweet.

And there you have the Rhine River

This last stop wasn't planned, but when we saw a Lego store we just HAD to stop! I think the adults had almost as much fun as the kids did! We love Legos.

Oh, and how could I forget, we also went to a Gestapo Prison. It was sad but very neat also. Sadly, no pictures of it.