Another teenager in the making / Nog een tiener in de maak

He can never wait until tomorrow as he always believes that what is coming then is the best ever.
I repeatedly tell him to cherish today and tomorrow comes by too quickly...

He's turned 10 today, going to the final grade of our elementary schoolsystem after the summer. He'll be really young when he goes to secondary school but doesn't care. He loves to be around older kids and wants to be treated like a 12 yr old ...

Sweet bubbly boy you want to be grown so fast and me, I want to enjoy the little boy in you for a bit longer than you do ...

~ 9 years old ~ Oh my !

Congratulations sweet cuddly boy of mine, every day you become more independent, easygoing, smarter, humerous, happy and special  !

May update

Stuff that happened in Daan's life this month (photo & info overload):

Ed finally tried his first cakepop and was surprised he liked it more than my cupcakes .... pffff

Queensday was a bit of a dissapointment, my total score has never been so low; 4 boxes of embroidery floss & 2 tupperware items.... I'm going to Alkmaar next year with Corinne Delis ;)

I went to the Beautician for the first time in years, i used to go every month but since the kids this became less and less. It was only a basic appointment but I definately want to go again and for an extensive one soon !

My paypall account was hacked, that is not a joke people ... It takes all kinds of hassle to get this fixed !

The boys took part in the peanutball school tournament, they won :) Although Ed, who played coach for both their teams, told the boys all games were a draw ;) They loved being the best in their team and sometimes it feels great to rock and show off for your classmates.

I went to the springmarket in Heemstede with my mom, sun was shining, it was fun ! Said hi to Danielle Muit-Krusel who was working there and ran into my friend Leonieke, it was a huge market with a wide variety of stalls.

We gave the garage a good reorganisation, basically it was a lot of trash and putting shelves in to give things a new place; we can finally fit all of our bikes.

We watched a bunch of movies; Toy story 3 (1/2), the hobbit, TRON, transporter 3, SITC 2, Soulmen, the wolfman and Cadillac Records.

We spent the weekend in germany for mom's bday, it was great to spend some time with my aunt & uncle and their kids. We went siteseeing, shopping and had a bbq. Funny thing was that my brother and his girlfriend drove up with us and the kids went a day earlier with my parents, turns outthere's no difference between having them on the backseat or our kids LOL just as quiet ... They really should stop making out in public, but since they're so young & in love and such a cute couple, they're forgiven ....



Colin <3 any kind of school sports activity that is offered so when they asked who wanted to be in the waterpolo schooltournament he couldn't wait and they did real well, they came in 3rd ! there were about 29 teams in their age category (but since Colin skipped a grade he was by far the youngest) so that's awesome ! He was really tired as they started around 18.00 and the last match was @ 22.00 ....



Made a bunch of felt hearts, cause i fell in love with Revlie's forest of felt hearts. Just need to find some time to attach them to sticks to make a forest.....



At 40 years old I still have never been to the Zuiderzeemuseum, so we wanted to do something cultural and took the kids. It was fun, and not so busy so we got a great tour in one of the fishers family homes, the kids got to lie in a bedstead and play some oldfashioned kids games.



The kids had a schooltrip to Archeon, i volunteerd to go along accompanying Colin & a few classmates. We saw almost everything there was and did some fun things like make fire, drink tea from a fire, make pre historic jewelry, repair pots, played a viking game, archery, make a felt bracelet and speer throwing. I gave the kids some extra lunch because the lunch provided wasn't enought and I was the best, according to the kids....



The boys had a day off from school and since Michael was going away for the day so we went out for lunch with Colin at a goatsfarm in Amstelveen, he got to feed them bottles, play a little on the playground and we had a good walk in the woods. But mind you goats are not only cute, playfull and they like to eat your clothes ...




Colin & I both got glasses, Colin needed them for school and watching tv from a distance. Appearantly he has trouble reading beyond 4 mtrs, the letters are distorted to him but he refused to admit it even after tests. He can grow out of it but for now he has a pair at school (orang/black) and a pair at home (green/black). I got mine as I kept getting headaches at work because of my increased computer screen work. Here they are :



We had a spontanious dinner with Michael's bball team, wow that was a big group but we sat all the kids at one table and all the adults at one and it worked out fine @ a wok restaurant.

You know what can really make my day ? When I pipe a perfect rose swirl on a cupcake, makes me smile every time I see the pic



That's it for May folks, sorry for not keeping up weekly updates ...

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 !

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

Hope all is well with all my blog readers ( I know there are some LOL just always wonder who ...) ! Thought I'd let you know what's up in Daan's life ;)

I'm busy getting organized for my trip to London this weekend with my mother, leaving friday morning and will be back sunday evening. It's been a while since I was in the UK and I cannot remember when my mom and I have been on a trip for more than a day together or in the UK together (I think this was when I was like 14 orso) so this will be fun ! I'm looking forward to visiting Anthropology, GAP, Cath Kidson and Alfie's Antique Market. I bought a fun touristy book called 100% London and it has lots of fun restaurant, shop and just touristy things in it so we plan to use that for some info if we run out of idea's but any other tips are welcome ....

Oh and my diet did it's job I'm totally cleansed, just have to keep up with avoiding white sugar and use cane sugar instead so I will be testing that in my cupcake recipe's. I decided to stay on this sugarless route as I'm used to it now. My vitality and energy levels are still not good so he advised me to take vitamin's (he said Centrum and Supradyn are very good) that I should take throughout the winter. I still fall asleep on the couch about 2 to 3 evenings a week so I'm not feeling a difference yet ... Any tips are welcome for this !

Another thing I just have to share with you is that Colin is swimming for his A certificate tommorow, we were amazed he was at all ready for it since he started last year december, swimming twice a week. We're very proud as we know how hard it is for him to focus with so many distractions !

I'm sure the boys won't miss me too much as they have a pretty full weekend planned and lot's of boys things they want to do.

A day in the life of Colin, a typical 6 year old ?

At school today the toilet was dirty but I really needed to do a nr. 2 (for the dutchies : dit betekent poepje), I was not pleased. So i decided to try this on a urinoir, which is kinda hard but I made it work. But they don't have toilet paper by the urinoirs at our school to i had nothing to wipe. The lunch mommy wanted me to put on clean "loan" underwear from school but I didn't want to so I went commando. Mommy and daddy where not pleased as now my pants were also yucky, they came to school early bcause we had a sponsor walk which they wanted to be there for and it's a good thing they were early as they had to race back home as they forgot my sweats but this way they could bring some clean underwear, that was nice.

Michael brought home a friend to play on the trampoline, but I was having some problems playing nice so mommy made me come in. I was not pleased but mommy promised me a long bath and I like playing in the bath so a bubble bath it was. When Michael's friend went home he joined me cause he likes to play in the bath too. We were having a ball, then mommy made us come out for dinner. She sent Michael back as he hadn't dried himself off properly, but after dinner (yummy bacon and egg sandwiches) his hair still looked wet and she went out exploring. And well she wasn't amused, you see I washed Michael's hair with natusan baby oil gel (which as mommy describes it as a thick hairgel like texture but is oily just like normal oil. I washed Michael's hair with it, never mind me being able to read I just grabbed the first bottle that too my fancy. Mommy had to wash Michael's hair like 5 times before she gave up, only to find that my hair was in the same condition from lying in the same bath for about 15 min.... My hair looked like this (see picture below) even after 6 washings and you should see our bathtub I almost slipped and fell when my hair was being re-washed. (* insert sigh from mommy as she tells you it took a week for michael's hair to recover even a swimming pool trip didn't help, my hair took a week and a half ...).



While mommy was washing michael's hair I was clearing the table, my turn and I wanted to help out while she was playing hairdresser. But ohoh I dropped all the eggshells on the floor, didn't tell mommy but tried to clean it up but couldn't do it fast enought so I hid the towels I used under the table (she found them when i was asleep in bed) and didn't say a word. Mommy was not amused when she found herself walking the eggwhites through the kitchen for about 5 min. until she found out. She sent me to my room, to bed can you imagine how upset i was ?! pfff to bed because I had a little accident, there were no hugs to give away let me tell you ! But I made up with mommy once she explained she wasn't upset about the spilling but the fact that I didn't tell her well who knew that was the answer ?

Boy I was tired by then time for sweet dreams and for mommy to clean up even more mess and wait for daddy to fill him in on the fun.

a new camera part I

DH has a new camera and besides being new, shiny and pretty it has a wonderful sportsapplication ... oh and how cool is that t-shirt ?

A bubbly little boy

From the moment he was born ...



he's been bouncing through life, he turned 6 years old today and we're celebrating it here ....

B'day Recaps (not only mine)

So I totally forgot to show you Colin's gorgeous bday cake (beware birthday photo overload ....) made by this lady found via this forum.

He had a disney party and she was totally into making a toy story cake for him. When Colin saw it he exclaimed "oooh that's buz" (so happy we have that on the flip !) and I can understand he was in awe :



Oh and he liked the mickey mouse confetti on my cupcakes as well ;)



He was spoiled a lot here are some prezzies he got and there were a lot of vouchers for which he bought an epet (monkey), 3 boardgames (of course), a flashlight, a smurf, a game for his vtech and he still has plenty left but we're spreading it not letting him spend it all at once ...



And some pics from the celebration @ school:



For his party with his buddies we had a whole summer beach party planned but it was cold & rainy .... so we had to revert to plan B (which is actually something he came up with a week prior to the party but we had everything set for the beachtheme ...) and that was to go bowling (he loved it and kept asking all the kids at the end if they liked his party, how sweet is that?!)! To add another fun factor we did our "wild fast food" lunch which is always very popular with the kids (translation : we package our whole table in alu foil and spread the french fries, snacks and mayonaise, appelsauce etc. on the table and let them eat ... ALWAYS guaranteed to give you faces full of amazement LOL). And then as a grand finally stomping (well sometimes it's sitting or lying) on the numbered balloons so the corresponding presents can be opened :




And as for me I was spoiled too on my birthday by the boys and my family and we had a fun day celebrating together. No breakfast in bed as the boys had a game, but a fun breakfast together and the unwrapping of presents. The boys gave me a pink apron and a baking book with great recipes and Ed gave me a Wii FIT !! then my parents joined us to go to the game (they won and Michael scored a homerun !) and a great brunch at home, they got me a tickets to go to Stevie Wonder (mom & I are going, so excited), my brother joined us for games and installing the Wii Fit (hilarious with the weighing and such but hey I'm very healthy appearantly) and then we went for dinner. It was a very relaxing most perfect birthday in a very long time ....

And yesterdayevening my party.... although I didn't have a lot of guests (somehow there was so much stuff going on ?? what the &#@$%!!! it all was I still don't quite know but it depressed the hell out of me ... and I didn't even want to make cupcakes for the guests that were coming) but at a certain point I just said f... I am going to make cupcakes anyway bcause otherwise I will have nothing partylike to serve my guests so I started making them anyway and it's just like scrapping I swear ! It's very therapeutic to bake when you're a bit depressed when your friends are having a rough time and there's nothing you can do about it (it was definately a full moon this weekend...), but I must say, the cupcakes turned out yummy (click on the picture to see the embossed fondant), I felt better and it was great fun with the girls that came !



Some gifts I got were Nigella Lawson - domestic goddess, a kookbook with kids bday cakes, a gift certificate for a chocolaterie, great bodylotion & showergel, a cute bracelet, lipbalm, a candle, a soap with some money attached to the package, money, a ticket to see Alicia Keys with Martine, a gift voucher & money over the mail and a gift voucher so I can get this perfum that I've been wanting for a while :



Yep this girl was definately spoiled :D!

He's 5

Yep our bubbly bouncy boy is 5 today ! You can congratulate him on his blog, he'd love that.

Celeb

Some of you had noticed already but we have a bit of a celeb @ home (and I'm not talking about DH ;) LOL)

In this issue of a dutch scrapmag CmF, you might have spotted this LO of Colin. So strange to see his photo scrapped by someone else, but fun too as it's totally different from the lo that I once made (at the beginning of my scrapcareer ;) hihi) with the same photo.

Version Jolanda Schellekens :


My version (for which I still want to make a right page ...):


I will leave you with a funny moment yesterday in the car (background info; We had just fitted (one shoe) and bought a pair of nike's for colin) ; Colin : did we buy the shoe from the store ? Parents : yes dear ! Colin : did we bring the shoe from the store ? Parents : Yes dear. Colin : did we bring the other shoe too ? Parents : Yes dear we bought 2 shoes ! hihi