Egg

I was not there so I did not experience this moment first-hand, but I love this picture. It was taken at the Blijdorp Zoo towards the end of the summer vacation. Lisa went there with a friend and the kids and they had a great time. Lorelei was talking about this egg when I got home and she laughs when she sees this picture. I do too :-).

Reading

Lorelei has always loved books and she still does. This picture shows it. If it is up to her she will read every day, and it really doesn’t matter if she reads by herself or is read to… books are fun! I love that about her and I hope she keeps that up.

That’s really all there is to this picture. She was so cute sitting there with her book that I just had to take a picture… Hope you like it :-).

Home Run!

Tobias’ baseball coach Jovanka Alfons played for the Dutch team in the 2012 women’s baseball world championships this year. Like I said before, Lorelei is a copycat and wants to do everything Tobias does, including baseball. Here she is swinging her bat and hammering the ball out of the front lawn and into the street! Quite impressive, right? Well, I don’t know if women’s baseball is ever going to be a big thing, but in any case, Lorelei will be ready!

Check out here attire :-).

Nail Polish

As I told you in one of my previous posts, Nonny got Lorelei blue nail-polish, her favorite color. Well, nail-polish has to be applied and then re-applied every few days or so. This is a delicate process, not in the least because the nails are so small :-). Nonny got the job done though!

Notice the chicken pox. By this time most of them had crusted over…

Hair…

Lorelei has hair issues. As you may have noticed, her hair is quite short. As you may realize, she is almost four years old. Point of fact: She has had a haircut only once, just before our vacation this year (partly in hopes that it would trigger faster growth). We may not give it a second thought (initially) and shrug and say: “It will be beautiful when she’s older…”, but mind you, a little girl like Lorelei can have a complex too! And she does. She talks about hair a lot and in this picture you may see a girl with a hoodie draped over her head and shoulders, but you would be wrong… that hoodie is… long hair! She walked around like that all the time this vacation swinging it around, putting it up and all sorts of other things. I have to admit, it is kind of cute, but I sure hope her hair will grow… soon!

By the way: her chicken pox did not come out yet when I took this picture, but in case you were wondering: she is watching Elmo’s World. After she got sick from her chicken pox she watched that even more than before… :-).

PS: Notice the blue nail polish on her toes… Nonny had her pick any color she liked and of course she picked her favorite one… blue.

Coloring

Like I said in my previous post Lorelei is quite the copycat. She wants to do everything Tobias does. Sometimes that can be quite annoying, especially to Tobias, but in situations like this it makes for utter sweetness. Not only will Tobias share his stuff with her (in this case his markers), but he will also help her with things and show her how it’s done…

Texas in the middle of the summer is quite hot. During the day, especially in the middle of the day, it is just to hot to go outside, even in the pool. You will just burn up! So, forced by the sun we spent some time inside the house as well. We played lots of games, watched a lot of Olympics, and the kids did quite some handy-work such as painting, play-doh, and of course, coloring! Cute huh?

Diving

If there is one picture of Lorelei that sums up our vacation it would be one where she was sitting around with her new pink Gap hoodie on her head as her “long hair” and chicken pox on her face… I will post something of the like, but although Lorelei was not one for being in the pool all the time this vacation, once she was in there she was absolutely nutsy and gutsy!

Obviously, we spent a lot of time in and around the pool. Tobias is the craziest about it and once he gets in he wants to stay in. Lorelei is crazy in the sense that she tries to do anything and everything that Tobias does, including jumping and diving into the pool from the diving board. Here I caught her in mid-air. I like this picture because to me it captures the uninhibited joy and laughter Lorelei displays when she is in the pool. I love it!