K's Birthday & Kinderdijk

Kaydree is 7!  This year for her birthday, we let her choose between taking a trip to visit some castles here in the Netherlands, or taking a trip to Kinderdijk to see the windmills.  Surprisingly, she chose Kinderdijk.  So Friday, she brought some treats to school (chocolate rice crispy treats with purple sprinkles to be exact - her choice) and we had a little celebration at home that night. 

I can't believe our little girl is already 7!

K's favorite color is purple (in case you didn't notice), so I had already bought a couple of purple shirts before we moved and saved them for her special day.  She also got a couple of new church dresses, which she always seems to be needing.  She told us she would be happy with any toy for her birthday.  After some more thought, she said what she really really wanted was a doll house big enough for her Barbies, but that she understood if she needed to wait for that until Christmas since that was a pretty big gift (I love that she is so conscious of asking for too much, it's exactly how I picture Ry as a child).  But since Grandma & Grandpa sent us some money so they could get her something too (and since shipping anything would be way too expensive), we went in on the Barbie house together.  This girl was oh so happy.  

Saturday morning we headed to Kinderdijk with our new friends and their 3 kiddos…it was quite the crew.  We took a 1 hour cruise out to the windmills, we spent 1 hour there exploring, and 1 hour cruising back to Rotterdam.  These are my favorite pictures from the trip, but they are all in the slideshow...

Ahoy!

Not quite Christmas card material, but at least K knows how to pose.

My favorite picture of the day!

It was a cloudy day, but somehow we dodged the rain.

The day was really fun and without too many hiccups.  Ry and I both decided that the 1 hour off the boat wasn't quite long enough to explore an area with 19 windmills.  We want to go out there again with some bikes and take the whole day to look around.

After our Kinderdijk cruise, our friends came over and we sang, snacked, and had a few more gifts for Kaydree.  I made rice crispy cupcakes instead of the usual ones...

Here is our entire windmill excursion in photo form…

I think it was a 7th birthday to remember!

Happy Birthday Big Guy!

Sometimes when the kids are asking for something, I tell them to go ask 'the big guy' and they somehow know that means 'Dad.'  Well, this year 'the big guy's' birthday ushered us all in to the Dutch ways on all things "Hartelijk Gefeliciteerd" or Happy Birthday.
The Dutch love themselves a good birthday.  They go crazy for birthdays, congratulating not just the birthday boy or girl, but everyone in his or her entire family.  They literally say "Congratulations on your husband's (mom's, dad's, or whomever's) birthday."  If it's your bday at work, you are responsible for bringing the cake.  Ry bought some pies from a local bakery, and everyone took a quick pie break at work.  They came in and shook Ryan's hand, asking him his age and congratulating him.  I wasn't so sure about all this at first (asking your age…really?), but now I think it's kind of cool.  It makes you feel like you've really accomplished something just by staying alive.  And for a mom (or dad I guess), being congratulated on your child's birthday could feel like "Yeah, that's right, I've kept this kid alive and well for all these years."  Kind of fun, right?
So here are some pics (grainy ipad pics, but pictures nonetheless), of our little celebration at home.  The big guy bought one extra pie for the family and it was a stroop waffle pie.  Stroop waffles are one of our favorite Dutch treats, they're like two waffle cones squished together with a honey-like syrup in between.  It might not sound like much but trust me, they grow on you.

Stroop Waffle Goodness

A very Dutch "Stroop Waffle Pie"

Looking up to the big guy, I love this one.

All smiles with A…she's hoping for the first shot at the pie I think.

The whole clan, ready for a birthday treat.

Feel free to leave us your Congratulations!  After all, a birthday is a huge accomplishment, wouldn't you agree?

City Life

Prepare yourself for a photo overload.  We have been busy adjusting to city life and I have taken loads of pictures in the process.  Moving into our apartment near the city center, I had a couple of immediate thoughts:

1. I knew it would be a convenient commute for Ryan and therefore we would (hopefully) see him a lot more.  That is a huge plus.  

2. I seriously questioned whether me and my 4 suburban children without a car (ryan uses it usually) would be able to adjust to a new urban lifestyle. 

Like everything else about our life here, it has been an adventure.  So here's what we've been up to lately:

I bought a bakfiets.  This bike is the best thing ever.  I really cannot sing it's praises enough.  All 4 kiddos have a seat (with a seatbelt) in this thing, and we go everywhere with it.  We even have a rain cover for it.  It is WAY more convenient than driving a car here (not to mention much cheaper if you factor in the cost of parking, let alone the possibility - or impossibility - of actually finding a parking spot and being able to quickly parallel park in it before someone else snags it).    Because Rotterdam (and all of Holland for that matter) has very organized bike lanes with light signals and everything, I actually had to learn how to ride properly in the city.  They don't require a license or anything like that, but it is a little tricky.  SO, Yes, sometimes I feel like I'm driving a rickshaw at the Rangers game, but this is my preferred mode of transportation in NL so far.

Doing a little weekday shopping with the girls.

Ry and kids at a stoplight

The kids and I have spent more time outside here than we ever did back home.  I think we all took our outdoor space and nice weather for granted in Texas, and now we know if we don't take advantage of every sunny day and every fun park we see, we might miss out on an opportunity.  The kids aren't thinking this, of course, this is just the only explanation I have for it.  Anyway, it's been fun. 

Kaydree riding her bike with Carv sitting on the back, Dutch style.

Playing in the sandbox hidden beneath the tree outside our house.  The neighbors built this in for the neighborhood kids to enjoy…so nice!

Another shot of the tree & sandbox

My friend Dayana (who has lived here for years) showed us this hidden treasure, an awesome park hidden in the middle of the city.  Apparently there are quite a few of these that are surrounded by other buildings and schools, you really have to know where to look I guess.

Climbing Carver

K swinging in the sunshine

Somehow they convinced that poor Dutch kid to swing them while they just laid back and relaxed.

Carv, pretending to be Batman if I remember right.

The grass is fake, but the kids (and the honey badger) don't care!

We live one street over from this canal, isn't it picturesque?  I love the bridge.  I try to convince the kids to go play there on the tree swing whenever I can.  It's never crowded and so peaceful, but they usually want to go to one of the bigger parks.

C making a run for the tree swing so he can have it first.

They tried to fit everyone on at once, but they couldn't quite do it.

One of the things I LOVE about Rotterdam is the amazing architecture and art you see almost everywhere you look.  The city was heavily bombed during WWII, and people from all around came in to rebuild the city.  As a result, it is a very diverse city with lots of different people and foods (restaurants, bakeries, specialty shops, etc.), and a great mix of old buildings and really modern ones.

This statue in the city center is called "ongebroken" or "unbroken"

I like this one too, you see sculptures like this everywhere.

Even the dumpsters are art!

Near our neighborhood they have spray painted cars everywhere.  They look really neat.

"Delfshaven" the area where we live

Carv's favorite, Joker on one side and Batman as a little boy on the other.

 Since nudity is no big deal in Europe, sometimes you have to watch out for the "art work".  There is a painting of a mother with no shirt on on the street adjacent to ours.  Every time we drive past the kids scream "CLOSE YOUR EYES" or "AAAGGGHH, THE NAKED LADY!"  Kaydree even suggested that we paint a shirt on her for Family Home Evening some time.  I've tried to explain to them that some people consider the human body to be a work of art, but that we don't consider nudity to be appropriate.  Yep, they still think it's weird every time they see something questionable.

We came up with a rating system for all of the artwork we see.  Each of the kids will rate things on a scale of 1-10, depending on how much they like it.  This is a 10 for Kaydree…

Bunny sculpture that floats on the pond in Vroesenpark.

Sunday evening bike ride to see K's favorite sculpture.

By the Rotterdam R

Finally, here are the littles all dressed up to go to a princess party for some girls at church.  We've been so blessed to make friends quickly here.

Carver would NOT dress up as a princess OR a prince.  Spiderman worked for me.

So if all of that doesn't entice you to come visit us, we are taking a boat trip to Kinderdijk to go explore a bunch of windmills this weekend.  It should be beautiful, awesome pics to come.  We are brave, I know, to get back on a boat with the kids after Amsterdam.  But we're going with friends this time, so I'm optimistic.

Dear Caitlin

Day Trip to Amsterdam = Epic Fail

Let me give you the play by play of our little day trip to Amsterdam.  First of all, we wanted to plan a quick trip to celebrate Ryan's birthday.  Friday night, our new friends here offered to watch our kids so we could go out on a much needed date night.  We went shopping and out to eat, and just enjoyed walking around Rotterdam.  Our kids were up and wired from having so much fun with their friends when we picked them up at about 10:30ish…pretty late for them.

The next morning we got up bright and early and headed out.  Here's our view from our great parking spot (hard to come by in Amsterdam), so the day got off to a pretty good start.

Happy kids waiting for our canal cruise to begin, posing for some touristy Holland shots...

 Handsome husby, on the canal.

 Here we are aboard the ship, waiting for take off.  Happy faces, so far so good...

Here's Kaydree taking in the sites…right about the time when the other 3 little people decided that hearing about architecture in Amsterdam was much too boring for them.  They started to get chatty, the Europeans on board started to give us some glares.

This was a cool view of 7 arched bridges in a row, taken right around the time the littles got a little whiney, seeing that they don't care at all about bridges.  The Europeans on board started shushing us, my favorite thing that people do to me when my kids are being noisy, as if I'm not already doing everything in my power to keep them quiet.  And as if the shushing doesn't contribute to the noise and make the problem worse.  And as if shushing EVER made a child make less noise.  Ever.

So I start the coaxing, the bribing, and the pleading with my kids to please please PLEASE be quiet so we don't disturb the other passengers.  And Ryan starts the asking firmly, then commanding forcefully, then threatening our kids to ZIP IT.  Neither tactic worked.  They were fed up with cruising and wiped out from staying out late and waking up early.  There weren't even any full on tantrums going on.  Just a lack of whispering and occasional whining and wanting to trade seats.  But of course, an unpleasant Dutch woman had to glare at me and request loudly, "PLEASE QUIET YOUR CHILDREN, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO HEAR!"  Humiliated, I mutter, "I'm so sorry, we're trying."  I didn't even blame her really, I could see her point of view.  I just don't think I would actually say that to someone even if I was thinking it.  And in my defense, they sold us children's tickets.  I don't think they promised anyone an adult only silent ride or anything.

So here's Ryan thinking, "I'll show you 'IMPOSSIBLE TO HEAR' when I come over there and smack you upside your head."

 And here's me, feeling like a failure as a mother.  And here's Elsie, obviously unaffected by the comment.  In the background is Carver, who keeps begging for a bathroom break.

So we finally get through with the cruise, and we're determined not to let it ruin our day.  We'll grab some lunch, make sure everyone gets bathroom breaks and is happy, and we'll move on.  We got lunch for everyone, and Carver is begging to go the bathroom still.  By this point, I know he means business, so I send him with Ry to rush to the bathroom of the small restaurant we're eating at.  The next thing I know, Ryan's in the doorway mouthing, "Help!"  Suffice it to say, Carver had an explosion.  And with no extra clothes, no paper towels in the bathroom and hardly any toilet paper, and the wipes left back in the car, I called it quits.  We cut our losses and headed home.  It turned out to be the best decision of the day, because poor Carver was definitely sick for that entire day.  

So, farewell Amsterdam.  Next time we'll be sure to bring our children healthy and heavily armed with ipads, leapfrogs, iphones, headphones, and a good nights sleep so we have any chance of enjoying your sites again someday.