Sinterklaas

This past weekend was Sinterklaas weekend. We celebrated a day early, on the 4th, so the kids could play with their toys on Sunday. It was very nice. Of course the presents come in big bags and Lorelei dove right int… literally. As you can see she is out in this picture but just seconds before I could snap this shot she was pretty much entirely inside the bag .

Sinterklaas brought her some nice toys and I think she was having a good time, as was I.

Thumb Sucking

Unlike Tobias, Lorelei is big on sucking her thumb. She never used a pacifier or anything like that, but she does suck her thumb. I have to admit it is quite cute…. (right?), but these days, with the cold and all, she has a big crack in her thumb and I am sure it is hurting her, but she just keeps on sucking anyway… I hope she realizes that it is her thumb sucking that causes the pain and maybe she’ll quit .

Coloring

Lorelei is in a pretty serious coloring phase. She loves the crayons and she loves the books. By now she has put one and one together to figure out she can color in the coloring books. Yes, she has also tried to color other book. Yes, she has tried to eat the crayons. But, she is over all that now (mostly anyway) and actually colors the pictures in the coloring books. I wonder when she’ll figure out that the lines are there for a purpose .

Frosty The Snowman

One of Lorelei’s favorite book at this point is “The Snowy Day”. It is about (well, that’s obvious…) a snowy day . It talks about how snowflakes form, how they fall, what you can do in the snow, and about building a snow man. So, you can imagine her enthusiasm when Tobias and I were building an actual snowman. She loved it! Unfortunately it did not last a long time… then next morning it had already collapsed and now all that is left is a little pile of slush… But, it is the thought that counts, right?

Pink Teletubby

When we took Lorelei out into the snow we dressed het up pretty seriously… She had new snow boots, just like Tobias, but she also has a snow suit, a hat, mittens and everything. I doubt she was very cold… I am not big on teletubbies, but she kind of looked like a giant pink teletubby…. very cute!

She had lots of fun running around in the snow and pulling the sled around (the red thing in her hand is the sled-handle). That kid in the background running out of the picture is Tobias engaged in a snow ball fight. He made her laugh! She stayed out there for quite a while, and even though at one point she probably did get cold, she still did not want to come inside….

Birthday Girl!

My little girl is 2!!! It is hard to believe but she really is… And she had quite the celebrations, in three episodes…

Episode 1: Daycare
They always celebrate birthdays at the daycare, but this time was special to me, because I was there… Since I work so close to home now I was able to ride my bike up and down to the daycare to be there for the party. I am not sure it was such a good idea, because all Lorelei wanted to do is sit with me, and when I left she had to cry, but at least I enjoyed it. I was also lucky enough that one of the people there was so kind to take some pictures. They sang songs, she got a gift, and she got to hand out her treat bags. It was very sweet!

Episode 2: The actual birthday, with family
Her actual birthday was on a Friday this year. My parents babysit on Fridays, so they were already there. Uncle Ferdinand came by as well and we had a nice celebration, a nice dinner, and a nice conversation. We also opened all the gifts Nonny and Aunt Shelli had sent us. Lorelei was one happy camper! One of the things she got was a coat and hat. We put it on her and it looks great, but she never wanted to take it off… We gave her a walk-bike (a bike without pedals), she got a doll-bed, a doll, a coat, boots, a puzzle, a book, and a Dora doll hand-picked by Tobias .

Episode 3: Party with friends
On Saturday we had invited friends over and we had a big party with a house full of people, mainly (or dominantly) kids. It was a very nice crowd an hence a very nice party. Lorelei got spoiled with lots of presents and lots of sweets, and a very nice cake . She actually blew the candle, and with some help from Lisa she managed to blow it out . We even had Nonny over through the webcam. Luckily one of our friends knows how to handle a camera and took this very nice picture while I was busy holding the webcam…

Like I said, it was quite the celebration…. and now my little Birthday Girl is 2!

Toy Catalogue

It is that time of year again…. the toy catalogues have arrived. This is one of those examples where you can tell Tobias gets upset when Lorelei is not careful and rips it up when she reads it. Good thing we got more than one, so they can each have their own . As you can see Lorelei’s looks more like a pile of paper trash than like an actual toy catalogue, but it does not seem to bother her…

She loves all sorts of things, especially things that she can say like:
- Dora and Boots
- Baby or Pop (Dutch for Doll)
- Motor (motorcycle)
- Auto
- Orse (Horse)
- Baah (Sheep)
- Boy
- Meisje (Girl)

If it is just the toy catalogue she rips up it is fine with me, especially because she obviously loves “reading” it…

The Reader

Lorelei is quite the reader… She has always been fond of books. Initially she just took them off the shelves and put them on the floor, and then back and off and back… Then she started to develop favorites, so now we have to read the same book every night. Her first favorite was probably Monkey Puzzle. Currently it is Snowy Day. But these days she is also pulling books out and reading them by herself, like in this picture. She is reading Where The Wild Things are, one that she has been pulling out quite frequently.

She is quite a wild thing herself, though… So, when it comes to reading books we have to kind of keep an eye on her, because she might just rip all the pages out. This has not happened yet, but her books are way more dinged up than Tobias’ ever were, and of course she uses his old books too… Quite painful for booklovers like ourselves, and I can tell it sometimes bothers Tobias too, but she is getting better at it….

I do love that she loves books and I love reading to her every day!

My Little Pumpkin

Oh my goodness, was Lorelei cute in her Halloween costume! I know, Tobias is quite the superhero, and let me tell you, was he excited to be Spiderman! He said his suit was so comfortable, he wanted to wear it all day! He did wear it for quite a while, but the mask came off after some time…

But Lorelei…. well, just look at her. She was especially fond of her hat (though that came off after some time too…), but she did love her costume from the minute she got it. We put it on just to see if it would fit, and then, when we put her to bed she did not want to take it off anymore . Of course she looks adorable no matter what she is wearing, but for Halloween she looked especially adorable this year! She did not have a whole lot of candy and I doubt she saw any of the bats or understood any of the games, but she did have a great time (I think), as did I!

A Walk in the Woods

A week and a half ago we went for a walk in the woods. Our primary purpose was to find chestnuts, but believe it or not, there were no chestnut trees in this forest…. (Haagse Bos). It was a beautiful day, so, we had fun nonetheless, but that was kind of disappointing. We did find a hut someone had built, some mushrooms, a herron who was catching a bug as we were watching him, some sticks etc.

In this picture Lorelei is taking a well deserved break. We had taken the stroller with us, but we did not use it. She just did not want to sit in that thing, but instead she wanted to walk and run and explore. Needless to say she got tired, hence this well deserved break and drink.

I guess we’ll have to go find chestnuts some other time…

Carnival in Gouda

The Carnival was in town a few weeks back. We went a couple of times, and really, it is more Tobias’ thing than Lorelei’s, but you should have seen her in this car-merry-go-round (it that’s how you spell it…). She was having sooooooo much fun. Each car has a horn and when Tobias would push the horn Lorelei had to laugh. And every time we took her out she had to cry. I let them go on this ride quite a few times because I enjoyed watching them together like that. Just look at them!

Lorelei had another first timer at the carnival: an oliebol. I think I have written about oliebollen before on Tobias’ blog, but the short version is: it is a typical Dutch new years treat often found on occasions such as carnivals as well. Lisa does not like them at all, but Tobias and I do, and so did Lorelei.

Growing… FAST!

My goodness, Lorelei is growing and developing fast. This picture was taken on our bike ride last Sunday when we stopped for a drink. We put her in a normal chair and it was fine with her. She would play around a little, but not anything that was too annoying. Besides, we were outside, so there was plenty of space.

Also notice her drinking from a straw. She has been doing that for a while and is now also to a point where she can drink from a normal cup without needing continuous attention (a little bit is still required though).

There was a little playground there with a normal swing. She would go on there and hold on, kind of like she knew she had to because she was on that thing. Of course she still needs pushing, but still…

As you can see she is wearing her sunglasses. She wore them throughout the bike ride without taking them off. Before she would never leave them on for more than two minutes. I guess she finally realizes it actually helps to wear them…

Finally she is speaking more and more. She has been saying Cat, Mama, Papa and such, but more and more words are forming. I will list a few:
Tobias – Aziza
Auto – Tauto
Opa – Opa
Oma – Oma
Nonny – Nonny
Tijd – Tijd (Dutch for Time)
Aan – Aan (Dutch for On)
High – Igh
Up – Up
Boat – Boap
RowRow – Row Row (meaning that she wants us to sing Row your Boat).

And there seems to be more every day. Nice! But also a reminder of how fast she is becoming a big baby (or small girl?)…

Baby Dolls

Lorelei got a baby doll during our vacation from her friend Piper. She has been lugging that thing around ever since. That triggered us to bring out the baby doll stuff that we had bought for Tobias when Lisa was pregnant with Lorelei. On top of that one of our neighbors was cleaning up old toys including a baby doll with lots and lots of stuff, including a stroller. Well, that was an instant smash hit!

She will put a baby doll in there and then put her finger in front of her mouth and say “shhhhh” and make the sign language symbol for sleep. Also she will put the baby in there and say “Hoppeta”, which is a Dutch thing we say meaning kind of like “There you go”. Very funny.

But probably the most amazing thing of all is her ability to manouvre that stroller all over the place! She just rides, stops, turns around and go back and forth and all over the place. The only thing that is hard for her are our steps in the yard, but I am sure it won’t take long before she can go there as well…

“Hoppeta”!

Biking, with Mama!

I got a new bike. A strange start for a post featuring Lisa and Lorelei on a bike. Well, I’ll explain… We have one bike seat. It was on my old bike. I had to take it off, to put it on my new one. It took longer than expected for me to get the new one so the seat was off for a couple of days.

I wanted to take the kids to school, so, I suggested to put the seat on Lisa’s bike. Sneaky me… I told Lisa that this would also enable her to take Lorelei on the back of her bike. She was willing to try and sure enough, it worked! As a matter of fact I think she enjoys it too.

All these years of worrying…. The things a new bike can do, not only mine, but also Lisa’s which we got last year. I think she is way more comfortable than on her old one. Last Sunday we went out for a ride with the four of us. We all enjoyed it. One thing I enjoyed was being able to see Lorelei enjoy the ride on the back of Lisa’s bike.

Cuddling

Lorelei hasn’t been much of a cuddly type so far. Usually she is more like a wiggle worm… But lately she has taken more to cuddling, and, for longer periods at a time. Especially when she is tired of course. Well, this was yesterday after dinner. She was tired but not ready to go to bed yet, which was fine with me. I have always LOVED cuddling with Tobias and he was a cuddly type, from the very start (and still kind of is…). On my daddy days I would just lay on the couch with him and cuddle cuddle cuddle, even to the point of falling asleep together just like that! Well, as you can see both Lorelei and me were quite comfortable. I hope this won’t be temporary!

Priceless

Like I said, it was one of those random things on a random night… Does it get anymore priceless than this?!

Know No Fear…

Last weekend was my moms birthday. I took the kids there after we went to the dino forest, so that was Wednesday. Her birthday was on Saturday and we all spent the night there. So, my parents had just the two of them for a couple of days, which was a nice end to the school vacation.

From what I understand everyone had lots of fun. Tobias played a lot of sports with Opa. Lorelei particularly loved the petting zoo. Apparently she knows no fear. We already kind of knew that, but petting every animal in there, even the big ones, including a humongous pig, a herd of goats and this cow! I remember my own fear of such big animals and to be honest, I am still not that comfortable around cows and horses and such.

But as you can see Lorelei does not seem to have that problem at all .

Pool Family

It is rare to find our entire family in the pool. Usually we are over in Texas during Christmas. Occasionally I will go in the pool, but I have to admit, the water is cold that time of year. Last year we were in Texas during the may vacation, which is the beginning of may. To me, the pool was nice then, and to Tobias too, but the rest of the family was hard to convince.

This time around, the pool was perfect, for all of us. We pretty much went in the pool every day we were there, and not just Tobias and me, Lorelei and Lisa as well. Loads of fun and loads of memories.

Be that as it may, this seems to be the only picture taken of all of us together in the pool. I am very happy it was taken and it is one of my favorite pictures of this vacation!

The Three Daughters

So, we went on vacation to visit friends. Particularly to visit Lisa’s best friends Bella and Josephine. Lisa was the last in line to have one, but since Lorelei was born these friends all have a daughter. So, introducing…. The Three Daughters!!! (left to right): Katy (Bella’s girl), Lorelei (Lisa’s girl) and Piper (Josephine’s girl). Aren’t they an adorable bunch?

Lorelei had great fun with these girls as she got lots and lots of attention from them. They held Lorelei, played with Lorelei and cuddled with Lorelei. One of the all-time favorite games was of course peek-a-boo, but needless to say, playing in the pool was a favorite during our vacation as well .

Friends, Family and Pools

Well, we are back from our vacation, over our jetlag and back into our normal routine. That give me time (and energy) to write something on my blog…

Our vacation was to the US to visit family and friends. We visited quite some friends, family and pools . First we went to Virginia where we stayed with Mike and Josephine in Warrenton, VA. They don’t have a pool in the yard, but there is a swimming pool around the corner, so that’s where we went: Pool #1.

Our next stop was Corolla on the Outer Banks of North Carolina (after picking up Keith, Bella and Katy in Chesapeake, VA). We stayed at a beach house there which had a pool: Pool #2. This picture is taken by Pool #2. We had taken quite a few pool toys with us, but Lorelei’s favorites were definitely these rings. She would throw them in the pool for the other kids to dive up, but also she would wear them on her head like this. Isn’t she an Angel?

We visited Charlene and Rodger in Richmond, VA. They have a pool in the yard: Pool #3. Lorelei did no swim in this one…

After two weeks of Virginia we flew to Texas to stay with Lisa’s parents in Dickinson, TX. They have a pool in their yard: Pool #4.

So, 4 pools altogether, and thoroughly enjoyed by both Lorelei and Tobias! Our vacation was great! I’ll post some more pictures and stories later…

Cuddling, Relaxing, Enjoying

I don’t know about Lorelei, but I enjoy moments like these… And in this case Lorelei stayed with me for quite a while. Usually she will be like this for just a couple of minutes (or seconds) before wanting to move on… This was a nice Sunday afternoon in May, after I had worked on the house for quite a while. I was kind of beat and just relaxing on our patio when Lorelei came up to me. I put her on my chest and just enjoyed :-)…

Eating by Herself

Lorelei is becoming such a big girl so fast… I guess you can’t help that, but sometimes I can’t help but wonder….. well, I don’t even know what to wonder so I guess I better enjoy it while it lasts….

Anyway, Lorelei can eat on het own. She has been doing that, first with her hands, then with her fork, and now with a spoon as well! It is still kind of hard for her and she is quite messy, but she is doing it. It was interesting to see because I just gave her the spoon and of course she knew what to do with it, but obviously she did not realize she had to do it by herself. So, she hesitantly moved the spoon into the oatmeal and got a tiny bite out. It quickly improved as the bite size and the speed of movement increased… as I am sure it will in the days and weeks to come.

It is quite cute, right?

I’m Walking Here To Be

Lorelei Loves walking. Usually we keep her confined to our yard when she is outside, but when Tobias is outside as well, it is kind of hard to keep her in there… it just is not big enough. So, she wants to go with Tobias into the alleyway behind our house. It is unbelievable how far she wanders off if you let her… Here she is coming back from a stroll to Gijs’ house (Gijs is one of Tobias’ friends). This was on one of my daddy-days and all three of us spent quite some time out there that day…. Lovely!

(Don’t you just love her outfit?)

Playing the Guitar

Lorelei had a brief obsession, still somewhat visible but much less intense, with my guitar. Pretty much every morning she would point to my guitar (which is hanging on the wall close to our kitchen table) saying “Da… da…”, meaning: “Papa, can you please play some guitar for me?”. Of course I love doing that so, I did.

Well, soon she discovered Tobias’ toy guitar and took a liking to that as well. As you can see she is quite proficient, at least in terms of holding it properly. She strums the strings and even kind of rocks back and forth as if she is rocking to some groovy tune… Now the signal for playing the guitar is when she grabs the toy guitar and climbs onto the couch with it. Her expectation is that I then grab my guitar as well and we start a jam together :-).

I just love this picture, and I am proud of my baby-guitar-girl!

Lorelei Loves Jip

My goodness, it has been a while since my last post. This has a few reasons, one of which is lack of availability of a computer (or rather, a well configured computer) due to a job switch… Lame excuse, but an excuse all the same. Then I have been working on my house a lot, painting, repairing doors, renewing our patio etc… And of course, starting a new job always requires additional effort. On top of that my new job does not come with a car, so I had to get a new one. In short, I have been busy.

Today was the first daddy-day in a while where I was just daddy, not a painter, brick-layer or anything like that :-). So, I am currently enjoying my daughter, who is eating a tangarine. Also, I switched my daddy-day from thursday to wednesday, which means Lorelei and I get to pick up Tobias from school around noon and then we can spend the afternoon together, although Lorelei will be taking a nap then. I love the switch, but it also makes it harder to blog, as I was kind of used to being able to do that while Lorelei was sleeping.

Well, back to my baby girl, she is lovely as ever! She doesn't walk anymore, she runs! She is much more of an explorer (or should I say dare-devil) than Tobias ever was, which is nice, but also scary at times... for example when it comes to climbing things... Also, she is much more of a girl (or should I say drama-queen) than Tobias ever was. She has a very clear understanding of the word "No", but she just won't take no for an answer, at any time :-). She will turn her had away, throw the back of her hand in a dramatic gesture and start crying. It is hard to keep from laughing when she does that…

As I wrote before, she knows the word “cat” although she (still) pronounces it “aths”. We kind of consider it her first real word and it is most likely not without a reason. She has been, and is still taking a strong liking to Jip. Of late you might even call it an obsession. She pets him, runs after him, cuddles with him and, as you can see in this picture can be very sweet to him. It is nice to see, but sometimes she has a hard time controlling her enthusiasm. That also happened not long after this picture was taken. Then Jip walks away most of the times, but sometimes, as happened this morning, he will scratch…. That is one of those scary things… she has a little scratch on her hand now, nothing serious, but….

Well, let’s not think about that, this picture is quite cute, right?


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Sitting at the Table

This is another daddy day and another one of my observation sessions with a cup of coffee... This time she was climbing on and off one of the kids chairs we have by the kids table. Well, she had been trying that before, but it didn't work or she would pull down the chair over herself and start crying. This time, however, I looked over and she was sitting like this. For the next 30 minutes or so she was going up down up down up down.....

So, isn't she a big girl now?


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My Own Chair

Lorelei has her own chair now. Lisa bought this chair about two weeks ago and Lorelei loves it! Whenever we are all sitting around the coffee table having drinks, she will grab her sippy-cup from wherever it is and come over, sit down in her own chair and drink as well :-). It is really nice.

Tobias also likes the chair, but for different reasons... He likes to jump on it and tip it over. This is not exactly the purpuse, obviously, but, as we found out, Lorelei likes that as well. As a matter of fact she will laugh and laugh at that "joke" of Tobias'. So, lots of fun, having a chair like that....


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Swing...

Spring is here! We gave Lorelei this swing for het first birthday and it has been up ever since, but it has been cold, snowy and rainy outside, so we haven't had a lot of opportunity to use it. Well, now we do and Lorelei loves that thing. Everytime we put on het shoes and coat she walks to the backdoor pointing at the swing saying "dee... dee..." (dee, in Dutch spelled die, means "that one..."). As you can see she enjoys it a lot!

Lorelei's vocabulary is also building, although there are no "real" words yet. She is pointing at stuff and for some things she has a different "word". Cat, for example, sounds something like "athsj", and like I said, that one sounds like "dee" and this one sounds like "ishj". And if there is no specific word and we guess right she laughs really loud and reaches for us or for whatever it is she wants. So, she can make herself understood quite well now.... I am sure that soon enough there will be some "real" words coming out of her mouth :-).


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Cutie...

I keep repeating myself, but my little girl is such a cutie... Here I am sitting on the couch, sipping my coffee and observing her on my daddy day. It does not get too much better than that! Anyway, she was playing with all sorts of stuff, getting on and off the chair and everything. And then suddenly she went for her dollhouse. It is not a small dollhouse, especially for someone her size, but she pulled it out by herself and started playing with it for quite a while and all I could think was.....: What a cutie...!


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Milestone: Walking!

Lorelei is walking. That is, she is doing more than one step before collapsing onto her knees. Today she walked all the way from the coffee table into the kitchen (which is not that far, but it is at least 10+ steps! :-)). I have to apologize for the image quality, but it was kind of hard to keep an eye on her, try to walk backwards, encourage her, and take a picture at the same time. I hope we'll have some better pictures soon. In fact, I might try to get a movie posted into this post.

Update: Well, that worked, here is the video:



Tobias started walking on a day when he was staying with my parents, so we were not there.... My parents were here yesterday, so I am not 100% sure if Lorelei did not do the same thing, but I am sure of one thing: she walked today! If she did start yesterday, she started walking at the exact same age as Tobias.... one day before she turned 16 months. If she started today, she would be exactly one day later than Tobias :-). I guess I should ask my parents, but I am not sure they'd give me a straight answer. Especially my mom was a bit worried when Tobias took his first real steps at their house, without any one of us present. So, I guess I'll wait and maybe ask a few month down the road :-).

Regardless, this is one major milestone!


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Swimming Pool

Tobias loves swimming. Lisa would take him to baby swimming and he would just love it. During vacations we would take Tobias to Rotterdam where they have a huge swimming pool with water slides and all kinds of other stuff. Lorelei is not as fond of swimming as Tobias was, but once she is in the water she'll laugh and splash and play. Lisa took Lorelei to the baby swimming too, but Lorelei is currently experiencing some eczema so we were advised not to put her in the water as often. So, we're not bathing her as often and Lisa is not taking her to baby swimming anymore. During the winter-break we did go to the huge swimming pool and we did take Lorelei there. And, she loved it! She was so cute kind of crawling around in the water, playing with a ball, splashing the water. And, going down the slide with Tobias!




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