Reflections of Motherhood

We should all reflect a bit more and be less hard on ourselves .....

The Party's over now

I'm now.

What?! I know crazy ...

And when you reach a certain age you either go in denial or go crazy and celebrate in style, I chose the latter ....

I threw a Tea Party for my friends, I got spoiled, we laughed, chatted and we had a great time it really was a sweet and wonderful day. For those who couldn't make I have photo's (all courtesy of the fab miss delis) so you can see what you missed ;) !

Want to know what I made and see close ups ? Check out my other blog !

Colin's Birthday Party

It took a while before we really celebrated his birthday (we did this intentionally because everyone was on holiday and we wanted him to have lot's of guests there to celebrate with us) but when we do we go all out ! Spongebob was our theme and I think we rocked it !

A bigger shot of the dessert table & photo wall since I'm so proud of how it turned out (credits : table by me, wall by Ed) !

Sometimes you need a little time

Time to but read a lot of books (the darkest powers & House of Night series), be ill (twice), make plans for the summer, make plans for redecorating in your home, purging and raise 2 highly intelligent kids. So that's why I needed a little blogbreak somehow I just didn't feel like writing here ...

But we have been doing a lot more than just the above to be honest, never a dull moment in this household.

After getting his B swimming certificate it took Colin only a month to get the final C certificate and that didn't come without a tough injurie because he somehow got a chunck stripped of his little toe and that bled so fiersly he was afraid to go back into the water. So even though he did not do all the necessary required obstacles he did get his certificate ! We were very proud and happy that the lessons (twice a week) were history :)




On May 25th, I started with ear-acupunture and a special diet which basically means no Carbohydrates at all so I could fit into my clothes again, be confident and feel like I did 2 years ago before my car/bike accident & the pleuritis.
The past weeks have nog been tough really, i don't miss a lot of foods but mostly fruits, french fries and potato chips. The great thing about this combination of diet and stimulation is not that I've been losing lot's & lot's of kilo's but lot's and lot's of bodyfat ! So far I've only lost 5 kilo's (3 and I'm @ my goal) but so much fat I could already fit into my clothes after 2,5 kilo's :) Only a few more weeks to go and I'm confident I will find a new balance with my food, weight and gymroutine.

Michael and Colin are doing very well in school, Michael will be going to the next grade (6) and since this will be a grade in which he will be getting lot's of new things to learn, he will have plenty to keep him busy as he already is in an excell program because he is way ahead of the rest. Colin will be skipping a grade and going from 3 to 5 as his level was, at the end of the schoolyear, already at the same level of the 4th graders. We're hoping he will be okay on a social aspect, but his former teacher and new teacher seem to have the utmost confidence as they've never had a student of which they are more sure he will be ok than him. So I'm trusting their judgement and we'll keep a close eye on how he's doing at school and at home. Colin is very excited he's been visiting the class and likes the kids much better than his own class, according to him there are less kids that tease there.

For the last day of school I wanted to do something special for the kids so I made them cookie's for them to bring to school. They turned out ok for my first try, i put them in little bags with labels saying have a great vacation, for Colin it was a goodbye gift in disguise. The teachers, the internal mentor, the head master and the concierge also got a bag of cookies and they were happy surprised.



We took the boys to see a Kiss concert, they thought it was fun to see but it just takes a while before the concert started and usually they can stay up real late but Colin fell asleep at about 9.30 pm and Michael at about 10.00. Don't worry they had earphones in, and they needed them as the opening act was ridiculously loud and nothing at all in the genre of Kiss. It was a good concert and they played really long, well worth the money. We weren't the only ones that took the kids along, there were a whole bunch of them with kiss t-shirts and make up on !



I tried to host a bbq party but unfortunatly it was not a good date i set, lot's of people couldn't make it due to prior engagements but I was dissapointed a tad when a lot of people just didn't respond ... I mean hello I cannot host a party if I don't know wether you're coming or not. I must say I have been a bit dissapointed on more fronts with friends/aquaintances inviting us around for fun stuff, it seems I'm always the initiator and I really should learn from this but it's hard ....
Oh well that's just us I guess, we're not the popular crowd never have been but we are a fun crowd and I'll someday be ok with it, it always takes me more time for things to settle down with me.



Now we're well into our summer vacation (7 weeks for me, 6 weeks for the boys and 3 weeks for Ed) it's been all about Dutch Baseball week, waterguns, sunscreen, geocaching, Movie Park Germany, relaxing at my aunts hotel in Germany, purging, Colin's 7th birthday, sleeping in, volunteer work for a handicap baseball day and getting the house back into a respectable state that has been long overdue for the last let's say uhm 4 years .... And hopefully a visit to the beach before the summer ends as every time it's been beachweather we couldn't go ....

the tale of a boy who finally turned 7

He's finally 7, been counting the days and reminding everyone the day before (like we could forget) that his birthday was finally close and wanted breakfast in bed but was on the sofa watching tv @ 8.00 (he went back to bed to eat it once we were up LOL).



He's a bubbly little boy, repeats the starts of his sentences numerous times until he knows everyone is listening, is the grouchy one but also the easisest to turn into a smiley one, highly intelligent ahead of his years (which frustrates him more every year as his brother will always be older and thus able to stay up later than him ...), still love watching nick jr., has trouble finding his own friends in the neighbourhood but is never afraid to be assertive in shops or fastfood restaurants when something needs to be asked/returned, has a hard time doing what he's told but if you tell him why he is more accepting, cannot be asked more than 1 chore or else he'll forget the rest, a very polite, easygoing and considerate boy when playing over at afriends house (so somewhere it is getting through whereas we only notice this in him when his brother is away), loves to cuddle you to death all the time to the point it's annoying LOL, is becoming quite the little baseball player getting better every game, can write really neatly for a lefty, hates cleaning up his room but when he does does a reall good job, likes to help getting the laundry done but hates setting or clearing the table, loves goin to bed late but we hate it that you don't know how to sleep in, love eating cereal for breakfast and faced a lot of fears in Movie Park Germany this year ( I have a really good picture I'll share soon of us 4 in the sponge bob ghost chaser rollercoaster) and adores his brother even though he gets upset with him a lot. Life would be a lot duller withouth having you around !

oh my how i am wishing for this

Love and Laundry

Spring High Tea Party

This weekend my mother celebrated her birthday, a week earlier because of mothersday, and hosted a high tea for the occasion. Last year I got ill and wasn't able to help her with decorations and baking but this year it all came together perfectly.

Here's an impression

We served lots of green & yellow candy, scones, vanilla & chocolate cupcakes, apple cinnamon muffins, banana bread muffins, mini club sandwiches, salmon sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches, chocolate, cookies, strawberries, mini pigs in a blanket and quiches.

A few things went wrong with the scones (they were intentionally smaller but I had a hard time figuring out the baking time and since I was rushing I had to throw quite a few out)and the cupcake toppings (i forgot to bring my mixer along so i didn't think it tasted ok enough but the guests seemed to like it).

Now that's the way to travel !

Check this out => I’m Blogging from Japan

My guitar hero

Michael and Ed started guitar lessons together last year.
After a few performances (Happy Birthday to you for grandma and his dad) Michael enthousiasticly told his teacher at school that he could maybe play something during the monthly show. And here he is with his first official performance, we're so proud that after only 4 months he's confident enough to play in front of the entire school including parents.

Way to go Michael, you are my guitar hero !

Scrapbooking

Yes I still do ! Inbetween alle the purging & decluttering I'm starting to get the itch to scrap again so I haven't missed a project for the blog.


Above the current dutch dare (not totally happy about this one, liking some elements and others not so much, any tips are appreciated !)Check out what the other girls did here ...

Below the dutch dare before that, the dare was "sport" totally happy with this one !

Happy Birthday Babe ♥

This gorgeous man turns 42 today and we are going to spoil him when he gets home this afternoon !



I wish I could say go over to his blog and give hims some love as he hasn't been active on it for a while. You can send him a comment or birthday hug here if you like.

♥ Yah !

I love the 80's

I saw this on Layle's blog and just had to share, I don't know if we had these championsships here in the NL but I guess it passed me by ...

The 1987 Dance Aerobics Championship - Watch more Funny Videos

update bday's, swimming, crafting

ehm a long one I'm afraid as I haven't updated since uhm well way too long sorry life got in the way

What's been going on, well we've had a few dinnerparty's, I did my taxes for 2008 so only one more year to plow through and then it's bye bye business admin, scrapped a bit, made a cute valentine bunting, oh and of course doing lots of baking which can mostly be seen here ...

Colin got his next swimming diploma B, one more to go

Michael had a star wars party, here's a little slide show of his party

some Love



Oh and for anyone still interested in some London Pics, here's a quick slide show

scrapped a sketch

I loved working on this new sketch that Kirs made, finally some inspiration for the baseball pics of Michael. Loved how it turned out, in one evening no less and I'm a happy camper (oh and so was Michael when he saw what I was working on).





Check out the what the other dt members made here and get inspired & join in !

For my mom

And all the other fans of The Sound of music ...



I just love these, love how people you think are watching and totally not like they are about to jump in and join the group dancing, love how in sync they all dance makes me all happy. If you know a good one let me know and make my weekend :)

how old ?

Can you believe it, he's 9 already omg ....



Our cute little boy, highly intelligent, a bit moody but oh so sweet, we love him to bits !



So we're throwing him a theme party this weekend .... it's star wars this year !

A pretty cake for a pretty little girl

A friend of mine asked if I could help her out with a birthday cake for her pretty little girl as she couldn't make her yummy cakes this year. I didn't hesitate to say yes, although it was a pretty busy time already, cause that's what friends do. My first pink cake with more than 1 layer .....

good music

somehow this post went wrong so here's trying again .... I loved this song in an old episode of house, like it ?

My word for 2010

I love Ali's idea of chosing a word every new year, a word that fits with what you would like to do more, your ? for that year or just a word that shows what you find inportant. Now when I thought about my word last week I had a hard time choosing one and don't think I found the right one to be honest, that I just chose one to have one you know what I mean ;)

So as I was catching up on blogs I read a word that a blogger chose for herself (love that they did it for the whole family) and thought that's it, that's my word for 2010 it fits me in every possible way this year ! So I decided to change my word, because hey who says you can't .....

My word for 2010 is FLOURISH and if you want to know why it fits so much better than the one I chose (which was creative ) well I mean duh it means this : to grow well, strong: thrive well that's want i want to do this year !

New Year, New directions, New Plans

Starting my own business has been one big adventure, meeting new people, climbing mountains, putting out fires and building towards something bigger and better, making friends along the way and sometimes doing things you wish you hadn't and learning something new each and every day.

Today the day has come that I have decided that I don't want to be in this adventure anymore, a decision that’s took me quite a while to make but I believe it’s a good one for me and my family. Another step closer to a better balance in our quality of life, more time for each other, for baking, for being creative, for spending with friends, for spontanious ideas and endeavors !

The much needed and positive changes have been made, I’m excited to embrace 2010 and wish you, my blogfriends, the same !!




I will give you all an update on the london trip and how we spent december soon I promise !