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?