Lorelei Michelle

Papa, Look at Me!

2012-02-01T09:46:00.001+01:00

Lorelei is a genuine girly-girl, that is in the sense that she loves her dolls! She’s got a lot of doll stuff and plays with it pretty much every day. They are her babies… They laugh, they cry, they sleep, they go poo… everything :-). Anyway, all that stuff accumulates in a corner of our house in a big basket. Of course, sometimes the stuff is all over our house and the basket is empty. And when the basket is empty you can sit in it. And when you sit in it you can cuddle with your dolls. And when you cuddle with your dolls and call out: “Papa, look at me!” Papa will get his camera and take a picture. And when Papa takes a picture that is so unbelievably cute he puts it on your blog….

Well, that’s what happened :-).

What Do You See?

2012-02-01T09:40:00.001+01:00

Last week on Wednesday Tobias had a friend over and usually when that happens Lorelei kind of follows them around the house. Sometimes she interferes with their play or acts annoying, but sometimes it is just like: Tobias plays in his room, I play in my room. So, when Tobias and his friend were upstairs I assumed that Lorelei went after them to play in her room. I was downstairs, but at some point went to check on them. Well, no Lorelei in her room… So, I went to look for her and had a hard time finding her, even though she was not hiding… not purposely anyway.

This picture was taken in our room… what do you see?

Well, Lorelei, obviously, but what else? She is sitting there behind our drawn curtains with a book in her lap. That black thing is Jip and she is reading to him. That’s how I found her and she was actually reading (that is: turning the pages and kind of telling the story :-)).

That gave me a good laugh!

TV Junkies

2012-01-25T11:19:00.001+01:00

Like I told you, while we are in the US we usually let our kids embrace some of the American culture and heritage. Well, what is more American than watching TV!? I also told you that our kids were spoiled. Result: there was a lot of TV watching. Tobias got Transformers DVD’s as a gift and Lorelei watched a lot of Elmo (a DVD that was already there). I am not much of a TV fan myself, especially not for the kids, but hey, what can you do… we were in TV Country after all…

We also watched a lot of Christmas Ice Age, Despicable Me and classics like Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. I guess Christmas time is kind of TV-time anyway…

As you can see there were no complaints from the kids :-).

Favorite Gift

2012-01-25T11:14:00.001+01:00

It is always hard to determine what gift is going to be the favorite in advance. Sometimes it turns out to be no gift at all, but something trivial like wrapping paper or a box. This time there was definitely a favorite gift for Lorelei: her computer! She did not even seem interested in opening any other gifts after opening that one and during the vacation alone it got quite enough play-time to make it worth it’s while…

There were many other gifts that got significant play-time, but this one was by far the favorite. This picture was taken right after opening it.

Christmas

2012-01-25T10:36:00.001+01:00

Christmas has come and gone, as has our jet-lag… So, time to start blogging again. I thought I’d start of the new year with a very very cute Christmas picture (and believe it or not, it took only one shot to get it… :-)). You can see a couple of things in this picture that kind of sum up our vacation in Dickinson, TX:
- The kids were very happy to be there (and so were we)!
- There were lots and lots (too many?) presents
- There was lots of candy (canes) (and an equal amount of legitimate spoiling of kids)

In addition to that we did some travelling to visit family, went to some sports games, played a lot with the toys (but not so much in the pool, that was a bit too cold, even for Dutch people), we played baseball, we drew, colored, baked cookies, we…. well, lots more fun stuff!
There was definitely some jet-lag going there, but the jet-lag coming back is always much worse, especially since Lorelei has a hard time getting back into here normal schedule. Tobias had hardly any at all, we had a couple of nights more than Lorelei…
But like I said, that’s all come and gone and now we can look back on a wonderful two weeks in the US, and look forward to our next visit!

Out for Dinner

2011-12-21T21:11:00.001+01:00

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

2011-12-21T20:56:00.001+01:00

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

2011-12-14T20:08:00.001+01:00

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

2011-12-14T20:00:00.001+01:00

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

2011-12-07T14:56:00.001+01:00

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

2011-12-07T10:17:00.001+01:00

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

2011-12-07T10:07:00.001+01:00

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…

2011-11-20T21:25:00.001+01:00

… 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…

2011-11-14T20:40:00.001+01:00

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

2011-11-14T20:36:00.001+01:00

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!!!

2011-11-14T20:24:00.001+01:00

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

2011-11-10T20:20:00.001+01:00

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!

2011-11-10T20:06:00.001+01:00

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

2011-11-10T19:58:00.001+01:00

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

2011-10-31T21:16:00.001+01:00

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

2011-10-31T20:59:00.001+01:00

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

2011-10-24T21:45:00.001+02:00

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

2011-10-12T21:51:00.002+02:00

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!

2011-09-29T22:02:00.001+02:00

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”

2011-09-28T09:55:00.001+02:00

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

2011-09-28T09:47:00.001+02:00

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

2011-09-28T09:40:00.001+02:00

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

2011-09-21T16:36:00.001+02:00

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

2011-08-31T16:10:00.001+02:00

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

2011-08-31T16:03:00.001+02:00

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

2011-08-21T22:10:00.001+02:00

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

2011-06-22T22:12:00.001+02:00

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…)

2011-06-22T22:02:00.001+02:00

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

2011-06-22T21:50:00.001+02:00

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…

2011-06-22T21:30:00.001+02:00

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

Photographer

2011-06-22T21:28:00.001+02:00

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…

Shoes...

2011-06-08T12:24:00.001+02:00

Today I was in doubt for just a minute... Is Lorelei really a girl? Why? Well... we were riding her bike and she was not able to paddle and look ahead at the same time... My doubt was very short lived, because when we came back home she started pulling out and wearing all of Lisa's shoes.

What is it with women and shoes man...?

Zoo (Dino Forest)

2011-05-30T21:37:00.001+02:00

About two weeks ago I took Tobias and Lorelei to the Zoo on my daddy-day, well, actually to the dino forest, but we did get to spend some time in the adjacent zoo as well. While doing so we came across this bronze rhino (yep, those are rhino ears…) and it made for a nice Kodak moment, right? We had a very very very nice afternoon, the three of us. Oh, did I mention I love my babies? And how about this picture!

Sand Box

2011-05-30T21:29:00.001+02:00

We redid our patio last year and in doing so got rid of the sandbox we had. Well, Lorelei just loves sandboxes. She plays in the one at the daycare on a weekly basis . So, we decided to get a new one. That was a great decision because that same day it already got so much playtime that it was worth the money and the trouble! And it has gotten much more playtime since. Lorelei basically plays in it every chance she gets, and Tobias also likes to play in it every once in a while. I love seeing the both of them in there, but how about the four of them? Here are Tobias and Lorelei, with Tobias’ friend Gijs and his sister Lotte playing in the sandbox all at the same time!

Swinging Merry-Go-Round

2011-05-30T21:23:00.001+02:00

This picture was taken on Queen’s Day on the Gouda market square. There were some games for the kids, including this swinging merry-go-round. Tobias had been in this one before, but it was Lorelei’s first time. She just loved it and did not want to get off anymore…. Look at that cutie smile!

Easter Egg Hunt

2011-05-30T21:11:00.001+02:00

I guess this really was Lorelei’s first real Easter egg hunt! Last year it was just Tobias and Imogen hunting, Lorelei was still a bit too small, but now she had her own basket and was hunting all on her own. Well, Tobias was a very supportive big brother to her too… It was really cute to watch. They also got a few gifts from the Easter Bunny . And, just take a look at that dress .

Extremely Cute

2011-05-30T20:58:00.001+02:00

God, how long has it been? Well, too long (which happens too often these days). Anyway, like I wrote in my previous blog, I sometimes put pictures on Facebook or Twitter these days. This is one of them, but I will share it here as well. Also, I am going to post some more blogs right now making up for skipping so long…. So, keep watching my blogs .

Facebook and Twitter

2011-04-13T10:57:00.001+02:00

I have both Facebook and Twitter accounts. Sometimes, especially when I take pictures with my cell phone, I use these services to publish pictures, like this one: http://twitpic.com/4i901j.

You can find my facebook page on http://www.facebook.com/cgdepee.

You can find my twitter page on http://twitter.com/#!/cgdepee.

You can find my twitter pictures on http://twitpic.com/photos/cgdepee.

For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Cute…

2011-04-13T10:45:00.001+02:00

Need I say anything but: CUTE!!!

Well, let me tell you what happened here… This was in the morning, even before we went to school. It gets quite cold in the house during the night and Tobias said he was really cold. Of course the heater was on so I suggested he’d sit on the heater. Well, the heater is underneath the windowsill so, he sat in the windowsill. Of course Lorelei wanted to copy him again, so, she did.

Like I said: CUTE!!!

Biker Chick

2011-04-13T10:41:00.001+02:00

For Lorelei’s Birthday we gave her a walk-bike. At that time the weather was not so nice, and also Lorelei couldn’t quite master the thing yet. Well, that changed over the past week or two… It is spring so we have been playing outside a lot. I decided to get the walk-bike out and have her ride it. Well, that was quite the success… It was much harder to get her off that thing than to get her on it . She loves the bike. She started out kind of slow, but soon went faster and faster, purposely finding little bumps or slopes so she could go “wheeeeee!”, and race down them… She is now at the point where she can kind of run it along and then let it ride a little. That, of course, is the point of a walk-bike: getting a feel for the balance. Well, I think she has about mastered that. We do have a normal bike for her, a little one. While it seems a bit early for that I am guessing that it won’t be very long before she wants to try that!

So, she is quite the biker chick, isn’t she?

Goofy Girl

2011-04-13T10:22:00.001+02:00

Quite often, at some point on my daddy day, we end up playing upstairs with the three of us. A lot of times it will be Tobias doing something and me playing with Lorelei or reading a book or something like that. Lately I found that Tobias end Lorelei can do more stuff together, especially because Lorelei wants to copy what Tobias does.

That was also the case here. We were all up in Tobias’ room and Tobias decided to show me some of his cool jumps on his bean bag. Well, of course Lorelei found that quite interesting and wanted to copy him. They ended up taking turns jumping on the bean bag, and I got to be the photographer .

Mama’s Shoes

2011-03-13T20:49:00.001+01:00

Lorelei LOVES shoes. She loves her own shoes, but recently she has started to take a liking to Lisa’s shoes. She can be really helpful and get your shoes for you, or remind you that you also have to put your shoes on. But, regarding Lisa’s shoes she has taken things one step further: She wants to wear them. Here she is walking around the house in a pair of Lisa’s shoes, and as you can see she is having great fun! She was walking around for quite a while with these things on and she fell like only once…

Open…. Tose

2011-03-09T10:36:00.001+01:00

Lorelei is similar to Tobias in many ways, but different in many ways too. For one thing she is much more physical than Tobias. Also she is much more restless. She is constantly moving around. I am somewhat sad about that, because one of the consequences is that it is hard to cuddle with her. I have such fond memories of cuddling with my little boy, but cuddling with my little girl, if at all possible, usually lasts less than two minutes…

Anyway, maybe because she needs to be moving all the time, she seems to be somewhat more naughty than Tobias ever was. She is now tall enough to reach the door knob, and hence, tall enough to open and close (“tose” as she says is) the door. Of course it is cute the first time, and then the second time, but the cuteness kind of turns into annoying-ness by the one-thousand-and-second time… . That is also the time the naughty-ness appears, because once she sets her mind to something it is hard to get her to stop…. without some form of resistance…

Fortunately Lorelei has a big brother and wants to do everything her big brother does. So, sometimes Tobias will go: “It’s ok, I’ll distract her.” and then he gets a toy he knows she likes…. problem solved .

Lego’s

2011-03-09T10:25:00.001+01:00

It has taken her a while, but recently Lorelei has gotten into the Lego’s. At first she didn’t really know what to do with them, but in this picture she is making a “Tower”, in other words, a stack of little blocks… It is so much fun watching her play like that. I took this picture just a few minutes ago and like pretty much like anything else, when she gets into it, she is into it quite seriously. Every once in a while I will hear: “Papa, tijt” (which is supposed to be “Papa, kijk”, which translates to “Papa, look”). I look, and she goes back to work .

(I have to mention this… As I am typing this she is emptying her bookshelf. Right now there is a pile of books on the table and she is looking for a particular one she know she has already read. The funniest thing is, she is whispering to herself what she wants and what she is doing… Sooooooo cute!).

BOOKS!!!

2011-03-09T10:19:00.001+01:00

I may be repeating myself by posting this blog, but of all the things she is into, her most consistent and probably most favorite one is BOOKS!!! Obviously she has lots of them, because she has a lot of Tobias’ old books and then her own on top of that… She wants to read all the time! Most of the times she wants one of us to read to her, which I love doing, but she can also just sit in het chair or on the couch and read by herself. She will get books one at a time, “reads” them, put them on the table or on the floor until her entire shelf is empty… As a matter of fact, that’s what she is doing right as I am writing this blog .

In this picture she is reading her absolute favorite book of all: The Little Book of Farmyard Tales. Actually this was one of Tobias’ favorites to, for quite a while…

Play-Doh

2011-03-09T10:13:00.001+01:00

Like I said, Lorelei is into lots of stuff… One of them is definitely the Play Doh. She loves playing with that stuff. She still requires quite a bit of attention when she does that, as you can see here. She loves to cut, but her fingers aren’t quite strong enough to use the Play Doh knife to cut through it. Also, she cannot open the containers by herself (and she just can’t seem to decide what color she wants to use…. ). But, despite all that, Play Doh is a wonderful thing.

Of course her Play Doh skills are also rapidly developing. She is starting to use the press, the roller, the knife, the cookie cutters, pretty much all the stuff we have. And it goes without saying that she gets into it with her signature abundance of energy and enthusiasm…

I know, I know, she has a snotty nose in this picture, but hey, it’s still kind of cute, right?

Writing

2011-03-09T10:05:00.001+01:00

It is interesting how skills and interests develop, and frightening how fast they do. Lorelei is into all sorts of things these days, and one of them is writing. She has a little notebook and writing means just doodling along, with a pen that is, because otherwise it would be coloring, I think I told you about this before. The thing is that before she would need help getting all the stuff, opening the pen, opening the notebook, holding the pen, everything. Now though, she just grabs everything, sits down and starts to write, color, draw, whatever it is that she wants to do.

Also, the language that goes with it is developing unbelievably fast, and in two languages. I think I told you before that language is not really her strong suit, not like Tobias anyway, but she is catching on man! She has gotten used to addressing me in Dutch and Lisa (and Tobias, most of the time anyway) in English. She is making sentences of a couple of words with a fairly decent sense of grammar. She is referring to herself as “I”, although she will also still speak of herself in the third person. Most of her sounds are fairly decent, the most difficult one for her appears to be “K”, which sounds like “T”, which makes for funny sounding words, for example, when she is playing with “Hello Kitty” . Another funny thing is that she is experiencing with sounds. She makes up words and then cracks up about them. Needless to say she is still laughing a lot and as happy as she has always been.

It is wonderful to witness all these developments, I just wish I could slow it down, or hold on to things a bit longer, or something…. (But the again, it probably still would not be long enough…).

Fishing

2011-01-23T15:44:00.001+01:00

Lorelei is really good at playing by herself. On my daddy days, after we take Tobias to school, I usually sit down with a cup of coffee and Lorelei just plays. She takes just about every toy off the shelf, plays with it, and then just leaves it there. Needless to say she can create quite a mess that way… Anyway, it is so cute to observe this process… Last wednesday she picked up her fishing puzzle and started fishing . And as you can see she did quite well, even with just her one hand!

Goofy Girl

2011-01-23T15:40:00.001+01:00

I quite often posted goofy Tobias pictures on his blog, but I haven’t posted as many goofy pictures of Lorelei. That does not mean she can’t be goofy. In fact, she can be quite the goofy girl… Here she is standing up side down on the couch while singing “Blowing In The Wind” with me. That little purse she is wearing around her neck was a gift from Lotte, Gijs’ sister. She wore that for a week straight (pretty much…).

Working Together

2011-01-23T15:35:00.001+01:00

Sinterklaas gave Tobias and Lorelei a toy to play with together. It had quite some playtime so far, but mostly by Lorelei. Today though, Tobias and Lorelei were playing with it together, even working together. Ok, the toy is for play-dough, but today it was used for letters. They made “chocolate letters”. It was just so sweet, I just HAD to post this picture…

Phone

2011-01-12T10:38:00.001+01:00

Out of all the wonderful toys Santa brought this Christmas, Lorelei’s favorite is probably going to be her phone. These days it is the first thing she picks up in the morning. It is very interesting to see how a toy can help her learning her numbers. All the buttons “say” the number when you push them, and the number appears on the screen. So, she can not only say her numbers, she also recognizes them. On top of that each number shows a picture of items in the amount of the number. She sometimes associates that item with a number. Like I said, very interesting…

We have similar toys with letters and the process is kind of similar. Tobias learned his letters using those toys and now Lorelei seems to be too…

Writing…

2011-01-12T10:15:00.002+01:00

Lorelei is very much into coloring, drawing and… writing! Of course she is not writing any words or anything like that, but she does call it by its name. When there are crayons and a coloring book it is coloring, when there are crayons and blank paper it is drawing, and when there is a pen and a notepad it is writing . Here she is writing with Lisa and look at the concentration on her face!

BTW: Isn’t this a lovely picture?

Update: Actually, they are playing a game with pictures :-)... Cute all the same though, right?

Decorating the Tree

2011-01-02T21:27:00.001+01:00

It was Lorelei’s third Christmas this year, but her first time decorating the tree… Her first Christmas was spent in the hospital. Her second Christmas was in the US where the tree was already decorated when we got there. So, this year she got to do some decorating of her own. She was not too wild about it, but seemed to enjoy it enough… Of course, it created a nice kodak-moment, right?

White Christmas

2011-01-02T21:23:00.001+01:00

After a white Sinterklaas, we also had a white Christmas in Gouda. That is actually quite a unique thing out here… I am not sure, but I think that had been a while… Anyway, it was quite nice I have to say. But, as you can see, also a lot of hard work. I was working out there with Tobias and Lorelei saw us. She is copying pretty much everything that Tobias does, including this. That pink ball back there is her shoveling snow .

Travel in Style…

2011-01-02T21:07:00.001+01:00

Lorelei has a tendency to be (overly?) enthusiastic about things she gets. Like on her birthday when she got a winter coat and snow boots, and she was basically ready to wear them to bed, despite the fact that we had a fire going in the house and everything…. Well, this time is was a backpack (in the shape of a ladybug), a suitcase and cowboy boots… She just would not let go of it… We ended up hiding the suitcase because she just kept lugging that thing around the house…

Recently she had taken a liking to Tobias’ backpack after having it on het back one time on their way to school. She wanted to wear that thing every day since. Well, now she has one all for herself, and I am sure she is going to want to carry that thing every single day…

As for the boots, well, she doesn’t want to wear anything else when we go outside now. She loves those things! I guess that’s OK though, because the snow is gone now and she does not really need her snow boots any longer…. not right now anyway…

The suitcase remains hidden until we need it .

Happy New Year!!!

2011-01-01T11:01:00.001+01:00

Let’s start the new year with a resolution: More blogging! Even though I now realize that with 80 posts in 2010 I did not do too bad…. But hey, one can always do better, right? I guess I will try to blog more frequently…

Anyway, this picture was taken last night and proves that Lorelei is part Dutch. Why? Well, she is eating a ball of deep fried dough called “oliebol”, which is a Dutch delicacy enjoyed primarily on New Years Eve… One takes the ball, dips it in powdered sugar and… Enjoy! And that is exactly what Lorelei did. The ball ended up disappearing much faster than anticipated…. I guess she likes it… .

Sinterklaas

2010-12-08T11:22:00.001+01:00

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

2010-12-08T11:17:00.001+01:00

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

2010-12-08T11:13:00.001+01:00

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

2010-12-08T11:02:00.001+01:00

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

2010-12-08T10:57:00.001+01:00

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!

2010-11-17T12:38:00.001+01:00

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

2010-11-03T11:38:00.001+01:00

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

2010-11-03T11:32:00.001+01:00

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

2010-11-03T11:02:00.001+01:00

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

2010-10-13T09:59:00.001+02:00

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

2010-10-13T09:31:00.001+02:00

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!

2010-09-15T10:58:00.001+02:00

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

2010-09-15T10:40:00.001+02:00

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!

2010-09-15T10:26:00.001+02:00

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

2010-09-15T10:12:00.001+02:00

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

2010-08-18T20:38:00.001+02:00

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

Know No Fear…

2010-08-18T20:32:00.001+02:00

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

2010-08-18T20:15:00.001+02:00

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

2010-08-18T14:28:00.001+02:00

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

2010-08-18T13:51:00.001+02:00

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

2010-06-09T14:50:00.001+02:00

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

2010-06-09T14:37:00.001+02:00

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

2010-06-09T14:12:00.001+02:00

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

2010-06-09T11:26:00.001+02:00

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

2010-06-09T10:51:00.000+02:00

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?

For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Sitting at the Table

2010-04-08T13:23:00.000+02:00

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?

For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

My Own Chair

2010-04-08T13:16:00.000+02:00

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....

For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Swing...

2010-04-08T13:09:00.000+02:00

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 :-).

For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Cutie...

2010-04-08T13:01:00.000+02:00

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...!

For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Milestone: Walking!

2010-03-12T15:26:00.001+01:00

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!

For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Swimming Pool

2010-03-12T14:56:00.001+01:00

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!

For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Couch Potato

2010-03-12T14:48:00.000+01:00

I wrote before that Lorelei is able to climb on the couch. Well, at that time she was able with a little bit of help from her daddy, but now she is able! She climbs up and down, up and down, up and down. It is not the up and down that's scares me, it is the sideways.... sometimes she hangs quite far over the side of the sofa ready to fall, or not? Anyway, it freaks me out.

What's even worse is that now she can do it by herself she does not need us anymore and she does not call us either, she'll just do it whenever.... Like last week when Lisa was cooking and Tobias was watching some TV. Lisa went into the living room and saw Lorelei sitting kind of like this, staring at the TV, like a true American Couch Potato!

This picture was taken in my attendance. I think she is watching Ice Age 3 :-).

For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Playing by herself

2010-02-18T14:31:00.000+01:00

Lorelei is very clingy a lot of the times and she loves attention, but at the same time she can play by herself very well too. Sometimes we'll be sitting around the fire (see background :-)) and Lorelei will just kind of wander off. We'll hear some "da da" or "dis!" and sometimes other noises, but she'll just be playing by herself. One of her favorite places is her (or actually Tobias') kitchen. She'll take everything off the shelves and out of the fridge and the oven and inspect, taste and then toss every single item in there. She does the same thing when we pull out her toy basket. As you can see here we put her basket out and she systematically took out pretty much every single item. What is interesting is that she sometimes plays with the same item for quite a while, though. For example her balls. She'll push and roll them around the entire living room, chasing after them after every push.... or she will play for with a single noise-making-toy with buttons, like her phone or her sing-and-learn turtle.... It is so nice to watch her do that.

I guess we can ditch the TV because we have live entertainment :-).

For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Eating...

2010-02-18T14:04:00.000+01:00

Lorelei is a pretty good eater. She pretty much eats everything we give her and she eats it in rather large amounts too... I mean, you could give her a banana, a pear and a tangarine and she'd eat them all. She loves bread too and of course her cereal. We fed her all her food for quite some time, but now we are gradually getting her into eating some of the stuff herself.

The first step was taken by having her eat pieces of bread and pieces of fruit by herself. Granted, she is not using utensils yet, she is doing quite a good job actually. She used to toss stuff around and it would end up on the floor and all over her clothes, but now you can put a plate in front of her and she'll pick up the pieces and put them in her mouth one by one and quite neatly. She does get stuff on her hands and face, but she will also finish her plate in seemingly no time at all.

At dinner time she'll just eat what we eat, and like I said, quite a lot of it. And if you think that satisfies her? Well, I guess it does, but not enough. She knows exactly where the bananas are, and she'll start pointing and saying "dis dis". We know that means she wants one of those :-). If I would have to guess what her favorite food is these days I would say: bananas... :-).

Oh, did I mention she can be quite cute when she eats by herself...

For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Walking, Turning, and... Playing.

2010-02-04T15:49:00.000+01:00

Ok, this one is mainly because I think this picture is so cute, but it does come with a little anecdote: Lorelei pushes the cart forward and walks behind it. But, as of this moment she is unable to turn the cart around. So, she goes one way, bumps into something and the looks at us to turn it. Well, this time we did not come to her rescue. After some attempts at getting our attention she took things into her own hand, went into the cart, stood up and started pushing the handle from the other side. Needless to say, she did not get very far because she was standing in the cart.

I guess she figured that if she was stuck there anyway, she might just as well play with the blocks a bit. It was quite cute because you could kind of "see" her thinking process :-).

For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

More Snow!

2010-02-04T15:34:00.000+01:00

This past weekend there was snow, again! (No ice though...). Of course we went outside with our new sled! We could actually sled all the way around the block, which doesn't happen very often because a lot of people will sweep the sidewalk by their front door or the snow on the sidewalk will melt because of the heat of the houses... This time it was perfect. We were one of the first out there and had quite some fun. Tobias was doing such a good job holding Lorelei. Even though she sometimes tried to stand up straight, which makes it even hard for me to hold her sometimes, he held her the whole way around, twice!

And Lisa came outside to take this great picture!

For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Brushing Teeth

2010-02-04T15:23:00.000+01:00

Well, since Lorelei has teeth now (yes, teeth, she has two of them :-)), we thought it was about time to get a toothbrush and start brushing all two of her teeth. And we did. At first she did not like it and cried, but we made it kind of a game and that made her laugh. After a while she pulled the brush out of my hand and stuck it in her mouth herself :-).

Now, she does not have too much of a problem with brushing her teeth, as long as we apply some sound effects while brushing :-)

For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Milestone: Walking (With Support)

2010-02-04T15:13:00.001+01:00

Lorelei got a walking cart with blocks in it for her birthday. She hasn't been too interested in it until about two weeks ago. That is, she was interested in the blocks, in sitting in the cart and being pushed around, but not in walking behind it and pushing it along...... Well, now she is. Two weeks ago on my daddy day I thought I'd try to put her behind is and see what happens. Well, what a surprise, she started walking. Tobias had one of these things and he would walk behind it, but the cart would get away from him and he would fall. He did not get into it and he used a chair instead.

Lorelei can control the pace quite well. And, she is now so enthusiastic about it that it is the first thing she goes for whe she comes downstairs in the morning. I guess she should keep practising. It makes for some nice pictures. Of course, when she gets tired she always has her big brother to help her out :-).

For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Concentration and Coordination...

2010-01-14T13:29:00.000+01:00

At Nonny's house there is a plastic ring-pyramid. Lorelei played with that quite a lot during our vacation. It has big plastic rings and a pole that kind of sloped. It is actually quite easy to put the rings back on once you have taken them off. Lorelei, of course, did not realize that you can actually put the rings back on at first. She loved taking them off, sticking them in her mouth and then tossing them aside just to move on to the next color. Well, during the vacation she came to realize that it is not only fun to take them off, but that it is also fun to put them back on. So, she started doing that. Of course th bigges one was the easiest but she got to a point where she would be taking them off one at a time and then putting them back on one at a time.

Well, we also have a pyramid at home, made out of wood, with smaller rings and smaller holes. Altogether I would say quite a bit harder to put the rings on that thing, but, she did it, just like she had done on our vacation in Texas.... And she loves it! Just look at the concentration on that face!

For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn