If you wonder what my children are doing here;

they just put their shoes in front of the chimney and are singing Sinterklaas songs.
Seriously.

the other day

when we came back from waterpolo, Timo said he didn't have the faintest idea about 'what to become'.
Oh, i said you have plenty of time.
Not only that, he said, but so many choices.

i can become a professional water polo-er.
a professional judo player.
a comedian
or a singer.

err. i said,
if you want to be a singer, you actually have to have a good voice.
and then you better start taking lessons.

he had a better idea.
morten is taking djembe lessons at the moment, and now he wanted to take guitar lessons so they could form a band and then, well yes, it was only common sense and logic he would become the lead singer.

I kept my mouth shut for a moment.
Morten did not

A comedian??? he said.
Yes Timo declared.

I am actually pretty funny.

Carolines dance performance

One of our weekends away with friends and kids. 9 grown-ups, 9 little ones. Beautiful autumn weather and lots of fun.

New heels

No of course I cannot walk on them.
They are 14 cm's high!
But I just pose on them.
Or hang on Robberts arm when we go into a restaurant. Then quickly sit down and don't drink too much coz I can never make it to the toilet on my own.
But of course, all that is totally irrelevant.

Caroline turned 7

Yesterday morning she came into our room saying she had slept like a dog and had the feeling today was a special day, only she couldn't remember why.

Sure honey.
Todays your birthday and I don't mind saying it to you a hundred times.

At 10 a bunch of girls arrived. She had invited 13, luckily 2 of them were unable to come and as it turned out one did't show up at all. With our 3 though, we still had 13 kids running around.
Luckily there was plenty of cake.

After an hour or so we went to de Ontdekhoek where they made soap, baked their own crisps, made a boat, a book, stamps, you name it.

Then Robbert took the boys to judo and now owes me BIG time for staying behind with 11 girls, taking them home (in the back of the van), making them pancakes and then receiving the parents who were picking them up.

Morten with one of the Halloween lampions the girls could take home with them:

And then....

it was time for the highlight of this day.

Ears getting pierced.

She was pretty nervous and wanted to make sure there would be no blood nor pain. We told her the blood was covered, but unfortunately there would be a little pain.

little in her eyes meant something else.

After her first ear was done, she cried and said this would be it.

it took the sales rep and me a little persuading and then she had her second ear done.
back in the car, after the first itching and glowing was over, she was on top of the world and said she had had the best present EVER.

Fire!

This week the children have vacation and so Caroline had to give the treats at school a day earlier. Were it not for the fact that Friday her class had a Autumn-Do-Day where they would be wandering in the woods half of the day.
So Thursday morning this is what we made:

Then Friday afternoon the chimney sweepers finally came by, checked the whole thing, ran over some filter on the roof, but gave it their ok in the end and for the very first time we lit a fire!!!

The kids loved it. Timo ran up to me upstairs and urged me to come down with a book so we could cuddle up in front of the fire.

Seriously.
This is what it looked like.

Then they wanted cheese for desert and could they please please eat it in front of the fireplace.
Sam didn't mind joining in and warmed himself in front of the fire too.
The whole happy family: