Gratis Suikerspin!

A few days ago there was free cotton candy at Hesseplaats.

This was Jimmy's first time eating cotton candy...can you tell? He thought the best way to eat it was to lick it!

I'd say not much beats gratis suikerspin op een warme dag!

A Colorful Day

The boys were in heaven when I let them paint each other. They thought that was so cool.

I've never cared for mustaches, but Jimmy, I think you wear yours well!

Our New Pet

We found this cute guy in our back garden. The boys wanted to keep him but I don't think he would've lasted long between Jimmy trying to feed him sticks...

...and Glade trying to touch his eyes! Poor thing. He was only our pet for about fifteen minutes but I'm sure he will never forget the experience. He'll probably think twice before hopping into our garden again...sadly.

Easter Thoughts

Easter in Holland

One small difference I found with Easter in Holland is that they don't hide plastic eggs. In fact I couldn't find anywhere to buy plastic eggs. They hide chocolate eggs instead and usually do their hunting indoors since the weather is often rainy.

I collected a few plastic eggs from some random toys we had...like the kind you get from kinder egg toys and the vending machine type eggs. I filled those with candy. We had about 5 plastic eggs and the rest were small chocolate ones. Jimmy was so excited to search for eggs. Glade ate each chocolate egg as he found it, wrapper and all. He had to stop and swallow each time his mouth got too full!

So our Easter dinner was interesting! I tried to get a small ham at Albert Heijn and they only had very large ones. So I ventured over to C1000 and there was some mystery meat that claimed to be ham. When I picked it up it was very gooshy and gooey. Don't know what it was! So no Easter ham for us, but the scalloped potatoes with ham cubes and the fresh pineapple were yummy. Jarom claims that you don't eat ham for Easter anyway. He said Thanksgiving is turkey, Christmas is ham and Easter is whatever you want. Hmm, not what I thought! What do you think?

Look at those brown eyes! Today we will finally dye the eggs I boiled last Friday. Happy Easter everyone...it's still Easter here in Holland. Today is Second Easter day so most everywhere is closed and Jarom has off work. Gotta love those extra days off in Holland!

Jimmy Deprived

Jimmy's cute face hasn't been on my blog for the past 5 posts. I will make up for it in this post! Last week we had some very nice days. The weather was gorgeous. Sadly this week has been rainy again. Last week we enjoyed playing at a few different local parks.

We also walked to the Mall. It's only a 25 minute walk...not so bad. The Toys 'R Us has been completely remodeled and the boys had a blast in there. They now have a huge play area. Oh, and you should be proud to hear that while in Toys 'R Us a young boy asked me two questions in Dutch and I understood him and answered back in Dutch! Impressive huh? I ignored the fact that a lady asked me something five minutes before and I had no clue what she was talking about..."Sorry? Pardon?"

Glade thought it would be a good idea to use his cookie as a shovel. Jimmy found a few soda cans that some teenage boys left at the park. He thought it was so cool to pick them up and find the trash can to throw them away. Every time he sees a can on the ground now he wants to find a trash can to put it in.

And just a warning for you grandparents...Jimmy has grown up. He no longer uses sippy cups, the diapers are long gone, he pours his own drinks (sometimes even successfully), he makes his own bed, he goes to the "big kid" church class, he makes his own sandwiches and even eats his cereal with milk (huge step, I know). Don't worry though, he still is just as silly, ticklish, and picky as he's always been!

When we got back from the park and emptied our shoes of all the sand, the boys were a big help cleaning up. Jimmy did the dishes for me...

...and Glade mopped my floor. What exceptional helpers I have!

On Saturday the little boys enjoyed helping Jarom mow the lawn and trim the bushes. Our lawn mower is very cute and tiny and it's electric so we had to run an extension cord into the house. While the boys worked, I stayed inside and studied Dutch. It's coming along. I'm excited about learning it so I'm trying to study as much as I can while I'm excited! It's funny some of the strange things I can say when I don't even know many of the basics. For example, I can tell you that my friend's gynaecologist examined her uterus but when the store clerk asked me if I wanted a bag I was completely lost! It was quite a simple question, "Wil je een tas?" I'll be prepared next time. "Ja, graag!"

Burning the Fallas

Two more things:


Here's a picture I found of a burning fallas...

"The event is thought to have evolved from Pagan rites that welcomed the onset of spring by burning the wooden posts that held the streetlights used in winter" (msnbc).

And here's a video of the amazing fireworks...