Welcome to our family blog. We are a Dutch-American family living in the Netherlands. After a year-long hiatus I will be updating it at least 2 times a month. Enjoy reading about our ongoing adventures...
Leah celebrated her first birthday today! Exactly one year ago at 10.45 PM Leah made her grand entry into the world, to her mama and papa's eternal delight.
Leah walks for the first time(1 day before her bday!)
Wooden push-kart from oma and opa
She has learned so much in just one year - sit up, crawl, stand, now starting to walk. She has such a sunny personality, always laughing and smiling. She brings so much joy to us - Happy Birthday Leah!!!
Jan, Nettie, Femke & the kids rented a holiday house for the week. Leah and I joined them for Thursday to Friday. I am especially pround of myself for driving the entire 2 hr. trip with the GPS to guide me - on all the Dutch freeways.
We stayed in a vacation park. They had an elaborate indoor play park with a ball bath and baby play area for Leah. For Quinten, they had rope bridges, climbing walls, slides...I joined him for some of the adventures - luckily I fit in the kid-sized crawl ways.
We also did a little walk, stopping to enjoy a petting-zoo flock of sheep. It was then time to go home. Leah was a bit of a back-seat driver, telling mama "ba ba ga gooo" for a good part of the trip. After a while, she figured Mama can get her home after all and went to sleep.
Leah is playing a new favorite game - taking putting socks and small toys into and out of a bucket. She is a pretty low-maintenance baby toy-wise. Her favorites are socks, pieces of paper and some plastic cubes in a bucket.
We had a water-themed weekend. It was a clear, sunny spring weekend. It was very windy, but "warm" (about 60 degrees, much warmer than the 30 degrees of a few months ago!)
We went to an aquarium of local marine life yesterday (Saturday). We saw bass fish larger than Leah swimming around. We then went to the Mariner's museum with Jan and Nettie . It is now much more of a challenge to go to museums with Leah. She wants to crawl and explore, and not sit in the stroller all day. Luckily the museum was not crowded, so Leah crawled all over the second floor. She especially loved holding on to an old ship's cannon.
We went swimming at the local pool today. Rob and I took turns playing with Leah in the baby pool and swimming laps. Leah is her father's daughter...she loves the water, had a great time splashing around!
Rob and I celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary this weekend. Yes,for those that were thare, it was actually on Feb. 19 2006. We went out last night for a romantic dinner for 2 (Leah was by Femke & family).
We have also had cold, but clear, weather the last 2 weekends. In order to go out in Holland winter, Leah has more layers than years. On top of her indoor clothes, Leah gets 2 sweaters, extra socks, shoes, snow cap, scarf and mittens...then I have to bundle the Abominable Snow Baby into her stroller. The walks are fun, but the prep work can take a while!
We went for a walk in a local nature reserve with Nettie and Quinten. We walked the kiddie Kebouter (dutch Gnome) route.
