I heart Delft Blauw

I don't know how I did it, but I successfully convinced my hubs that nothing says "i love you" like Delft pottery.  For our Valentine's date, we went to 2 pottery factories in Delft.  This one...

 And this one...

For the record, my hair looked awesome at the beginning of the day, but the rain made sure that didn't last, as usual.

Another side note, I wore my cozy new winter leggings.  Outfit inspired by Afton.  Caitlin will appreciate my outfit-of-the-day pic.

We ended up liking the 2nd one much better, because it was much smaller and had a more family-run feel.  They even gave us a free tour (the tour at the bigger factory was 12 euro, which we did NOT take).  Here is where they have all the molds...

Here is where the hand painting is done.  They also allow moms to work from home and paint in their spare time.  We went on a Saturday, so that explains why it looks so empty.

Some of the pottery before it gets glazed and baked.  Painting in progress...

I didn't get a picture of the kiln, but it was pretty neat to see how they stack all the different pieces in there, completely filling it before they fire it up.  Finally, here is the shop.  SO many choices...

Here is my beautiful new pottery.  This plate will probably end up on a wall somewhere or on a plate stand.  I would love to get some smaller dessert plates to go with it (eventually) so I actually can use it someday.

This vase was 50% off because apparently the less traditional prints were not as popular as they thought they would be…but I am in LOVE with it.  I love all the dots and swirls and the modern shape.  This will be my mother's day gift.  I promised to keep it wrapped up and act surprised when I open it.

Now to travel to Polland and get some Polish pottery to add to my collection.  I would say that sounds like a good plan for next Valentine's day, but I have a feeling we'll be doing something very masculine next year to even the score.  Oh well, guess I'll just have to find another excuse to go!

all you need is love

Ry was working in Belgium all last week, so I decided to make Valentine's Day extra fun for the littles in order to distract myself from feeling alone and lonely on the day of LOVE.  Here is a run down of our fun...

A little lunch box surprise

Dutch conversation hearts!

Heart shaped pb&j sandwiches

 Dressing in their heartsiest duds...

K's cute outfit even has embroidered hearts on the collar.  Can you say Valentine's chic?

Elsie girl

Silly Ava

Heartsy Twinners

Lovely ladies

Too cool for hearts

I had a little activity table setup for after school.  Each kid got a heart-shaped lollipop and a valentines coloring page printout of their favorite character (dora for the girls, hello kitty for k, and batman for carv).  I also blew up a bunch of heart-shaped balloons for them to play with.

K came home last week from school and taught the kids the Beatles song "All You Need is Love" since she had learned it that day in music.  The next day I heard little Ava busting out this remix.  I guess she got the tune confused with "All the single ladies…"

I have to include this next pic too.  They needed moms to bake cookies for Kaydree's school for a Valentine's treat - heart cookies and hot cocoa.  I volunteered because cookies are easy enough and they even handed out the recipe and specified NOT to decorate or frost the cookies.  I guess they thought the hot cocoa was sweet enough, so the blandish butter cookies (not even sugar cookies) would be a good compliment (funny, because Americans would never think this way…bring on those soft lofthouse sugar cookies with the thick layer of buttercream icing from walmart, right?)  Anyway, these cookies ended up being a lot more trouble than I thought.  It turns out trying to bake without any of your usual stuff (ie: kitchenaid mixer, rolling pin, etc…things I didn't haul over to europe with me) takes a lot of time.  Props to my grandma, she probably rolled out sugar cookies with a tall glass on the kitchen counter all the time…not me.  Here is the masterpiece...

When Ry came home from Belgium, he brought me a box of delicious Belgian chocolates.  He wants a fat wife, apparently.  He says that he thought I could eat them one by one and make them last, but he knows I'm more of a eat-the-whole-box-in-one-sitting type of girl.  At least they are no longer around to tempt me…

For the record, I sent Ry off on his trip with a package of his favorite treat (salted cashews) and a huge Cola Light, his favorite drink.  When he came home, he suggested that we go out on a fancy date since we usually try to go out for dinner on V-day.  But rather than spend a load of cash on an overpriced and overrated Dutch meal, I suggested a far better idea: pottery shopping in Delft.  I will probably forget the meal, but won't forget a handpainted Delft blue plate hanging on my wall that I can pass down through the generations.  And because he is the perfect man for me, he agreed…with a smile on his face.  Pottery post to come.

The Year of the Snake

Ryan has kicked off his busy season at work, and as usual we are scrounging for ways to stay busy around here so we don't go CRAZY without a husband/dad.  Though I have been nervous that this year's busy season would do me in being in a new country, in the middle of a cold winter, and without easy access to transportation, I have to admit it hasn't been all that bad (knock on wood).  My bike gears froze completely a few weeks ago - a classic example of my dutch problems…problems I never knew existed before I became a Nederlander.  Anyway, this dutch problem rendered me bike-less and therefore transportation-less.  It turned out to be a blessing, though, because Ry and I finally coordinated schedules so that the kids and I could use the car more often.  We've been doing lots of picking up and dropping off at the office, and Ryan has taken the tram, metro, and train a bit more than usual, but the plus side is: he's been working from home a lot more so we actually get to SEE him.  Big plus.

SO, in our efforts to keep busy like dear old dad, here's what we have been up to lately -
China Light Rotterdam came to town.  I wasn't too sure what this was, only that they transformed Het Park with some sort of light display and that it costed big bucks.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  We loaded up the kids, pryed Ry away from the laptop, persuaded the Shurtliff's to get out of the house (which didn't take too much persuading since their busy-season-dad had been away traveling in the states for a while) and we braved the freezing temperatures to see what the year of the snake had to offer.  Here are the highlights...

Here's a bad picture of the Euromast - a landmark in Rotterdam.

This was Elsie's favorite scene

This was my favorite.  These elephants are made up of several blue and white porcelain eggs and teacups.  You can't tell from the picture, but it was pretty neat in person.

Our rating of China Light Rotterdam?  Well, here you have a classic case of something looking more fun in pictures than it actually was.  For the price, it was a little underwhelming.  But if nothing else is going on next year at this time would we go again?  Probably.  Desperate times folks, desperate measures.

Meanwhile, the kids have been doing some FUN things at school.  Every six weeks or so, Kaydree has something at school called "choosing hour" where the kids get to choose an activity or new skill they would like to learn.  They have had all sorts of options from sushi making to origami.  For this cycle, the options were drama, art, and debate.  Sometimes Kaydree surprises me…she chose debate.  I asked her what made her choose that (because I could really see her getting in to the other two, but NOT debate) but she answered that she wanted to learn something new and different.  Good answer!  Here is the assembly where she demonstrated her debate skills.  The team convinced us that they were monkeys…pretty funny...

K argued that she had fine fur on her arms, just like monkeys have fur…so she must be a monkey!

 Carver's preschool just finished up their theme "Pirates."  The teacher built a pirate ship for the kids to play in, they made treasure boxes, counted coins, and did lots of other projects.  He really enjoyed this unit.  Now they have moved on to "Doctors."  When I dropped him off at school today, his teacher had a bathrobe on over her clothes and had red spots drawn all over her face.  She had setup different stations for the kids to learn about medical stuff…it was really neat.  They took a little field trip today to a nearby hospital.  Each child brought a stuffed animal from home, and they checked out the "patient", did pretend x-rays, and made a mini-cast for their animal.

Today Kaydree took a special field trip to meet Dutch astronaut Andre Kiepers, who just returned from space after living there for 6 months.  They had a live streaming Q&A that parents could watch from home…it was awesome.  Her school was one of 2 in the country chosen to participate, so she has really been looking forward to today.

My props to the Dutch school system for educating my kids and giving them unique opportunities, and for keeping us all BUSY until we get through the season.  AND here's to the Year of the Snake, so far it's been a good one!

Carver is 5!

Carver turned the big 5 last week and we were ready to party.  We decided before we moved here that instead of having big birthday parties for the kids, it would be more fun to pick something new to see or do together as a family.  Poor Carver didn't have very many options in the middle of blizzard weather in January.  Luckily, the all you can eat pancake boat that cruises around the Rotterdam harbor was still up and running.  With the mention of the words "huge ball pit" that we explained to him was in the hold of the ship for kids to play in, he was SOLD.  Here's how his day went…

Sweet sisters - ready to go!

Waiting to board the ship...

 Let the food fest begin!  The Dutch love their pancakes, which are really more like crepes filled with toppings.  We could choose apple, bacon, or plain pancakes and then walk through the bar of toppings and load them up with whatever.  Repeat.  As many times as possible.  Yum!

I love this guy - he can't even stop mid-bite to smile for a picture, because he has to make sure he's getting his FULL money's worth of pancakes!  Too bad we ordered all the drinks we wanted and realized afterwards that drinks were NOT included in the price.  Poor Ry, I think it about killed the accountant in him to pay 20 euros for half drunken chocolate milks for the kids!

The Bar O' Goodness - my personal favs were the soft cheeses, salami, and toffee bites.

The ball pit...

That's Aves in purple at the bottom, & Elsie in pink climbing out

C was the only kid who slid head first!

Enjoying the harbor while the kids played...

 All smiles as we left...

I have a feeling we'll be making a return trip or 2 to the pancake boat.  It was pricey, but a night to remember for sure.
Here are some fun facts about Carver at 5:
favorite color - blue, favorite toy - batman/batcave, favorite food - chocolate, favorite book - spiderman secrets, best friend - Fabian Scheffer, most often in trouble for - sneaking snacks, screaming in the house, we are proud of him when - he's polite and a good listener at preschool, makes friend easily, eats well, and is the most affectionate little guy I've ever seen.  Happy Birthday Carver!