Out for Dinner

It is not very often that we get to go out to dinner with just the three of us. In fact, I think last year’s Christmas Dinner at Tobias’ school may have been the last time. Well, tonight, while Tobias had his Christmas Dinner, we took Lorelei out to dinner as well. It was a nice dinner with a really sweet girl. Oh, and Lorelei and I got to share some ice-cream :-).

Ice Skating

The ice-skating rink is in town. Today we went out there and Lorelei had her first ever ice-skating experience. In this picture it does kind of look like ice-skating, but I can tell you, it is not, not yet anyway. She was able to stand on the ice, and she was able to move a little bit, but I had to keep a firm grip on her the whole time. She did seem to like it and we were out on the ice for quite a while… Both my ankles got poked by a skate and keeping that grip kind of broke my back, but I had a good time nonetheless…

Notice Tobias in the background. He went skating with school on Monday. He was on the ice without anyone’s help. That’s a first too… last year he still needed my support pretty much continuously, but well, when you’re with your peers I guess you kind of have to do it by yourself… Today he had to as well, because I needed all my attention for Lorelei. He did fine. He started our holding on to the railing, but after a while he just went around and around. It is not very confident yet and not very fast either, but he is doing it, and, he is proud of it (and so am I).

Lipstick

My daddy days with Lorelei are so entirely different from the ones with Tobias. There are many reasons for that, but one of the main reasons is most definitely that Lorelei is a girl… With Tobias we would always have to fix something, play with cars, play soccer, play hockey, play with the racetrack, and so on…. Boy stuff…

Well, first of all, Lorelei plays a lot more by herself. She will just wander off to her doll corner and start putting her baby to bed or getting her up or walking around with the baby in the stroller. Also these days, she goes into her room and listens to music on her CD player while reading a book or playing with her princess doll. But today we were sitting on the couch and all of a sudden she goes: “Oh, I need lipstick!” and she ran off to the hallway to get her purse. Yes, she has a purse, a gift from Sinterklaas, and it came with all sorts of stuff including this little make-up mirror and the lipstick (well, technically it’s lip-gloss I’ve been told…). Anyway, she races off and comes back with her purse, pulls out the mirror and the lipstick and starts putting it on… (the only thing I had to do was open the lipstick :-)).

Like I said: different, but I love it just as much!

Potty Training Baby

Lorelei is (almost) potty trained. It took her a lot longer than Tobias and she had some ups and downs. Now all she needs to do is the night, and get a little bit more comfortable and timely with #2… Anyway, it has to be on her mind because this morning she was playing with her baby doll and all of a sudden she came up to me saying: “Papa, you have to turn the light on in the toilet, baby has to do a wee!”. So, I turned the light on and got to observe this spectacle… She took baby’s clothes off and put her on the potty encouraging her to do a wee… :-).

New Look

Some great new blog templates came out recently. I thought I'd try something new: the dynamic layout. I particularly like the FlipCard view, but I decided on the Magazine view as a default. I also used this template for Tobias' blog. Let me know what you think... (for example by posting a comment to this message).

Update: I missed the link to my other blog and the history overview too much, so, I reverted back to a more classic (yet different) layout...

Not Quite Herself

Lorelei is not quite herself today. She was a bit feverish this morning, has a stuffed up nose and is not anywhere near her usual energy level. A perfect excuse to cuddle up on the couch and watch Ice Age and Buurman & Buurman, and read lots of books. She said she was cold, so I wrapped her up in this blanket.

She’s still cute, even when she’s sick, right?

Sinterklaas

This year was Lorelei’s fourth Sinterklaas, but her first where she was really aware of it. We went to see Sinterklaas come into town, we saw Zwarte Pieten several times and places, and we listened to lots of Sinterklaas songs. Lorelei was even able to sing some by herself! So, she realized that there were presents in the bag. To see the excitement on her face when some of the presents were hers… Priceless! Her favorite was a purse with hairclips, lipstick and a mirror in it… What a girlie girl .

Biking…

… without training wheels or my help…! Quite amazing I might add. I guess my prediction was a bit too optimistic, but to be frank, I knew it would be. What I did not know is that it would take only three times around the block without training wheels before she could do it all by herself! Well, today she did it as you can see in this picture. I do run with her in case she does not pay attention or gets too close to cars, walls, lampposts and such, but really, she does not need my help anymore. She can even turn a corner by herself!

I am a proud papa, and even though it is hard to tell in this picture (it was very foggy outside today…), Lorelei is quite the proud girl!

Pooped…

After most of our guests were gone and it was just my parents, my brother, Yuri and us Lorelei had a chance to wind down. These days she loves watching “Buurman en Buurman” (literally: “Neighbor and Neighbor”), a Czech animation series about two neighbors who like to fix stuff but get into all kinds of trouble doing so. Here she is on our couch watching that with her baby (Oh, and the baby-carrier was another birthday gift ).

Can you tell she’s pooped?

Dora Cake

Lisa has made some beautiful cakes over the years… Here is Lorelei’s second birthday, and here are Tobias’ fourth and fifth birthdays… But this Dora cake sure is a piece of work as well! It took quite some work to get it like this, but I think it looked great, our guests were impressed and most important of all: Lorelei loved it! (Oh, and it was quite tasty too ).

Three!!!

It’s official: Lorelei is three years old! It does remain unbelievable, but true at the same time. We had a really nice party last Saturday and as you can see in this picture Lorelei had a really nice party dress, and a really nice Dora cake! She had been looking forward to that Dora cake, I can tell you that. She helped making it as well. Oh, and she loved eating it, too! Lisa had bought the three-candle with her and that was exciting too… I guess everything was quite exciting to her.

We did have quite some people over, both kids and adults. Lorelei loved a lot of things about it, like the presents, playing with the children, the food, things like that. But, I do think she was somewhat overwhelmed by all the attention. I don’t think she very much likes being the center of attention too much. She did get lots and lots of gifts though. We got her a CD player, and Tobias some CDs to go with it. It is nice an pink and she like just lying in het bed and listening to it, or dancing to it as well (which is basically jumping around in her room…). She got some more Lego’s, Princess dolls (Snow White and Cinderella), boots, a coat, a dress, games, puzzles and a beautiful Hello Kitty stuffed animal.

But, guess what she liked most… In het gift baggies for the children we had put a little figure flash light for the bigger kids and a bouncy ball with a fish inside for the little kids. Lorelei got one of those… and she would not let go of that thing… Fortunately she got tired of that after a while and started paying attention to her real gifts again, but sometimes you wonder why you go through all the trouble of finding the perfect gift when all it takes is a bouncy ball…

Anyway…. my little baby girl is three now!

Quatre Mains

How cute is this! We had a sleep-over last weekend. Both Tobias and Lorelei had a guest. It was a really nice time with lots of playtime and laughter and….. MUSIC! Here Lorelei and Euan are playing a quatre mains piece on the piano. Well, a quatre doigts actually, because they were using their fingers, as I had instructed, which means one finger (the index finger to be exact) per hand.

I just love this picture (and watching kids making and enjoying music)!

PS: I think the correct English term would be “piano four hand piece”, but as I grew up in the Netherlands I am used to the French term…

Party Girl!

It is hard to believe that Lorelei is turning three this Saturday. Today was Lorelei’s daycare-day and there she had her first celebration. Like last year it’s the first moment of birthday celebration. I was lucky enough to be able to attend and take some pictures. Lorelei does not say much at the daycare, but she was definitely enjoying the attention and the fact that she got to sit on the table! First there was singing, then there was candle blowing, and then there was gift-receiving, her favorite (well, probably, because she also loved handing out her treat baggies).

Anyway, I love this picture of het unwrapping her gift with her tongue sticking out .

iPadding

If you are a follower of my blog, you know that my kids like to have fun playing with digital equipment . Well, these days my iPad is the object of most interest. At first it was only Tobias, but now even Lorelei is asking for it. They both like all the talking creatures like Talking Tom, Talking Ben, Talking T-Rex etc. In this picture Lorelei is looking at Talking Ben and laughing her head off at Ben repeating her own laugh . This was her first time really, but Tobias has been playing with it as well. There are many interesting games that have some educational value to it. Math stuff, letter stuff, reference stuff and such. Lorelei also liked drawing with her finger…

Kind of cool to be a kid these days, right?

Pumpkin… drawing

Lorelei is a bit young for handling serious pumpkin-carving-knives… but, she does handle markers quite well. She used a marker on this little pumpkin… All by herself actually… She was very proud of it, and rightfully so (at least, that’s what I think).

Lorelei Ladybug

It was Halloween this weekend… well… technically, it is Halloween today, but we had a Halloween party this weekend. It was a very nice party with all the Halloween decorations, candy, food, jack-o-lanterns and…. costumes! This year Lorelei was a ladybug. She was so cute, don’t you think? She was also quite proud actually, and excited. The wings and antennae did not last very long though. Her antennae came off first… (She called them “ears” ). Not long after the wings came off… But a great time she had, that’s for sure.

Under Water

I am not sure when exactly this picture was taken. I do know this was an old school picture with some numbers, including what I guess to be a print date on the back. It says April 2011… To me this picture just kind of “showed up” in our house at some point. I do also know it was taken in (literally) the swimming pool Lisa and Lorelei go to pretty much every Tuesday for baby swimming.

Lorelei LOVES swimming and Lisa is lucky enough to be able to go every week. They do all sorts of things including swimming under water, as you can see here.

I just love the fact that this picture was taken… How often do you get to take or see an underwater picture of your own baby?

School Picture

Well, not really a school picture, but a daycare picture, but hey, what’s the difference. Is that time of the year again, a new school year has just begun so the school photographers are on the prowl. Well, with this beautiful picture of this beautiful girl I am pretty satisfied .

PS: Notice the hairclip...

Beautiful Girl!

No additional comment, because, in my opinion, none required !

(Ok, let me just tell you that Lorelei really wanted to copy Tobias, so, she climbed on that thing and just stood there. When I pulled out the camera that wonderful smile appeared on her face. Like me, she was having a very nice time…).

“Reading”

This is one of the cutest pictures that I have taken in a while, and not just because my girl is in it, but mainly because of the story that goes with this picture. Tobias is in group 3 now, which means he is learning how to read. I guess Lorelei sees him doing that and wants to do it as well. So, every once in a while she will pick up a book, sit in a chair or on the couch, and start “reading”. Most of the times it is a Miffy book, because she knows those by heart and you will hear her say the lines that go with the page she’s at. And it is usually not just one book, but when she gets into a session like this she usually “reads” a couple.

I love reading to her, and I love the fact that when I stop mid-sentence that she will finish the sentence, but this “reading” all by herself is just absolutely adorable!!!

Girl In A Basket

This picture was taken about a week ago (an has a striking resemblance to my previous post… right?). Apparently there is something to sitting in something . The interesting thing about this picture is that she was just playing along with all her toys taking more and more out of her basket. I guess at some point it was (almost?) empty and she figured, why don’t I just climb in there and hang out for a bit… But that’s not even the funny part. The funny part is that we weren’t paying much attention to it until we hear her go: “Hi Nonny, how are you?”… We looked around and there she was with her (fake-)phone in her hand pretending to call Nonny!

Soooooo cute!

Girl In A Box

Every once in a while (well, quite often actually) we receive packages from the US. Yesterday was such an occasion. A lot of times there will be clothes or toys in those boxes, but that is not the point of this post… The point is that the boxes itself are often used as something to play with as well. I remember one of the more recent boxes being used as a “ship”, and Tobias would be pushing Lorelei around the room in it. This time the box was first used as a “playhouse” for our kitten Darwin. She was playing in it while the kids were laughing at her. Today, as I was sipping my coffee I looked up and saw this picture… It is amazing how long kids can play with such futile things as a box, and how much joy they can derive from that (as did I ).

Helping Out

Lorelei has not been one to help out much around the house so far, but it seems like that is about to change. Tobias got into helping out a bit earlier, I think. I guess that was mainly due to all the work we did at the house when we moved in. We were always doing one job or another using all kinds of tools. He had his own toolkits, lawn mower, etc. Anyway, Lorelei is now getting into that too. She has been helping out cleaning the bathroom, mowing the grass, and as you can see in this picture, vacuuming the living room . I hope she keeps this up in the future and maybe one day we can just sit around while the kids clean the house . That will require some work on both Tobias and Lorelei I have a feeling, but hey, that would be one proper investment, right?

Potty Training

Potty training has started. We had made some lame attempts before, but now it is somewhat more serious. It started when a little friend came over and he was seriously working on it. He is a few months younger than her. His mom was putting him on the potty every hour or so. Well, we haven’t been doing that and still are not doing that, but that little boy’s visit triggered some potty sitting by Lorelei. Unfortunately most of the times she would want to sit right AFTER she had already done her business.

Today was an interesting day though. This morning she said she had to go wee and she actually had to go. She had not gone yet, or not that much anyway. Who knows, is she getting there? I would not at all be surprised if she is going to set her mind to it at some point and that would be that then… That’s kind of how it went with Tobias. We’re not making a big deal about it, but today was a proud moment .

New Room with Beanbag

Here I go again: I can’t believe how fast my little girl is growing. We replaced her baby bed by a big bed, took out the rocking chair and replaced it with this bean-bag (the girl-version of Tobias’). And she is so happy with it! Can’t you tell? We did all this right after we were back from our vacation. Why? Well, Lisa may have told Lorelei once that we would do that. Lorelei remembered and sure enough she reminded us right after we got back from our vacation. What else can you do than comply with her request in a situation like that.

We were worried she would have a hard time staying in her bed, her being unable to sit still and all. We haven’t had any trouble yet, though. As a matter of fact, she still just stays in bed in the mornings, even when she is awake. Only one time so far did she come down by herself, but that was in the morning while I was taking a shower…

So, mission accomplished, I guess….

Trampoline

God, I have so much to write…. and I will… but not right now. Right now I just want to share this wonderful picture of my girl on a trampoline at a friend’s house where we had a BBQ last night. It was hard to get her off that thing. She is quite the crazy girl copying everyone else, but isn’t she just the cutest thing?

Balloon Baseball

Today was my daddy day. Of course I had to take Tobias to school first and after that Lorelei and I kind of have our own little routine. We come home, I make some coffee and we sit on the couch and read (mostly Miffy these days…). Well, today was different, because Lorelei said (without any prompting): “Ik wil niet boetie lezen want ik wil boon baseball pelen.” (“I don’t want to read a book because I want to play balloon baseball” written with the pronounciation mistakes only in Dutch, because I find that also quite hard to convey in English… well, balloon baseball sounds like boon baseball, but the rest was in Dutch…). Balloon Baseball is something Tobias and I play a lot. It is basically hitting a balloon with some object like a sword (like in this picture) or a stick or something… then, it you hit it, running to the scratching post without getting tapped by the balloon…

Apparently Lorelei had been watching us closely because this is what happened:
- Lorelei got the balloon and gave it to me
- Lorelei got the sword
- Lorelei positioned me somewhere in the middle of the living room saying: “You stand here papa”
- Lorelei positioned herself on the carpet
- Lorelei said “Frow the boon papa” so I did
- Lorelei hit the balloon and dropped the sword on the carpet
- Lorelei ran towards the scratching post and stopped halfway
- Lorelei turned around, picked up the sword and threw it just beside the carpet (pretty much the exact spot where Tobias throws it)
- Lorelei ran to the scratching post
- Lorelei raised her arms and yelled “I won papa!”

x 100 .

Biker Chick (Continued…)

I think I have told you before that Lorelei is quite the daredevil… When I said that I thought it’d be a while before she would ride her real bike I did not mean just two months… I meant, maybe by the end of the summer…. Well, she is there already. Ok, she needs her training wheels and she is not going as fast yet and she still needs quite some coaching, I am amazed by how quick she develops her skills. I would not be surprised if I could get rid of the training wheels by the end of the summer… .

She calls biking on this bike “trappelen” which is really funny for Dutch people, but I find it hard to convey the humor of it in English… So, I’ll just leave this one for the Dutchies to laugh at .

(French) Indoor Playground

Like I said, we did not have great weather while we were in Paris (actually La Celle Saint Cloud…). So, we did a lot of things indoors, like this: going to a French indoor playground. Well, there wasn’t a whole lot of French to it…. It seems these places are the same everywhere….

Lorelei had some great fun riding this car. The guy behind her is Tristan, Valentine’s little brother. They were “racing” each other .

(Probably) my Favorite…

This is probably my favorite picture of Lorelei from the Photoshoot. You think she’ll be a supermodel?

Photographer

Like I said, Tobias and Lorelei had their pictures taken a while back. Here is hers. She is sooooo cute, not just in this one, on others as well…