Letter From Sinterklaas

Sinterklaas is so much fun (and leverage) for parents . Sinterklaas writes everyone a letter in the form of a poem telling everyone how nice (or naughty) they have been and how he expects them to be better next year and such. Ans, if you are really naughty he takes you to Spain in a bag. Only imagine the amount of leverage that provides a parent with . Anyway I (oops, excuse me, Sinterklaas) wrote Tobias a letter too, and guess what, he is a great big brother, but he should eat his food and listen to papa and mama .

Baking

 

I know this does not look much like Sinterklaas, but to me it was a wonderful part of this years Sinterklaas celebration: baking with Tobias. He has not been much of a sous chef lately and we haven’t been watching Ratatouille for a while now, but he still loves baking! Here we are making “Krepernoten”, something that was in between “Pepernoten” and “Kruidnoten”. Tobias was helping with the ingredients, with the kneading of the dough. So much fun! I made pea soup too, and he helped me with that as well. Lovely!

Super Mario Bros. Wii

Tobias made his own Sinterklaas wish list this year. Actually he made three: One written list and two cut and paste lists from toy catalogues. This gift was the first on his first list, the written one. He was thrilled when he found this in his shoe!

“YES! This was on my list! YEAH!!!” .

Note: Notice how well his game matches his pajamas...

Tinker Toys

Tobias is not much of a builder. Sometimes I wish he was somewhat more of a builder, because I have fond memories of playing with my legos building all sorts of stuff. There is one type of construction toy that he loves though, and plays with pretty much every day! Tinker Toys!

He makes all sorts of stuff. Unfortunately (for pacifist-me) he mostly builds weaponry of sorts, but lately there have been houses, bridges, space ships and such. I love watching him play like that!

Let It Snow!

Wow, what a nice weekend we had! It snowed! Enough to have a good decent snowball fight and enough to go sledding, and sledding we did. I was pulling Tobias around the block and he was having soooo much fun! Every so often I would kick back some snow “by accident” and Tobias would just crack up…

Also, Tobias was wearing his new snowboots, which he loved (and needed…). We were out there for over two hours! Not only was it a very nice afternoon, it was also a nice prelude to the Sinterklaas evening that very evening…

Fall Break

Tobias had a fall break two weeks ago. We did not have a week’s trip planned like last year, but we did go out. The first weekend Tobias and Lorelei went to Opa and Oma. The four of them had a good time! Lisa and I took the opportunity to go out with the two of us. We did not go far, but had a good time too. We stayed at a hotel in Amersfoort, a city we had not visited. We did some shopping, some dining (and wining), but most of all, some relaxing.

The second weekend we went to visit our Friends in La Celle Saint Cloud (near Paris). We drove down on Friday, and came back on Sunday. We had a very nice time, and so did Tobias and Lorelei. Valentine and Tristan do not speak Dutch or English and we anticipated kind of a hard time playing together, but it was just fine. Apparently language is not that important yet if you want to play together. And Tobias picked up some French, because here they are watching Toy Story 3, in French!

We all went out together to the Aquarium in Paris (near Trocadero). The weather was horrible, the Aquarium smaller then we expected, but it was nice nonetheless (probably because it was inside and it was pouring down rain… ). After that Lisa and Julie spent some time shopping. The next morning Nadim and I spent some time mountain biking.

We headed back home on Sunday afternoon, after a very nice weekend with very nice friends. I hope we can visit again sometime soon (a lot sooner than this time because it had been a year and a half!).

Halloween

We had quite the Halloween experience this year. It started kind of early with aunt Shelli sending us candy, costumes and Halloween decorations. Some of this stuff has already been used during the weeks leading up to Halloween, but this past weekend was a real Halloween weekend.

On Saturday Lisa and Tobias carved the pumpkin, and what a great job they did! Tobias picked the design, and helped Lisa with the carving and getting all the yucky stuff out . I got to enjoy (and photograph) the result.

Lisa had a Halloween party from work on Saturday night. So, she had to make her costume as well on Saturday. Tobias and I read some scary stories .

On Sunday we had a Halloween kids party at a friend’s house. We were in charge of desert and Lisa and Tobias made pumpkin pie (yum!). Tobias and Lorelei got to wear their costumes and looked great! There were lots of candy, food and games at the party, and lots of carved pumpkins (but we had the biggest one ). At dusk we went outside for a walk and we saw some real bats fly over our heads! Scary!!!

We had a nice Halloween this year!

“Winning” Stuff

Like I said on Lorelei’s blog, the carnival was more Tobias’ thing than Lorelei’s. Last year I had taken him to the carnival and we went in a pretty serious ride, the Octopus. It is one of those rides where the cars go round and round on an arm, but individually as well and they go up and down too. Well, that started out slow but went faster and faster. He wanted to go on the ride so bad, so, we did, but when it was going faster and faster he wanted to get off the ride so bad… probably even worse than he wanted to get on .

So, this year he was kind of traumatized for rides. Basically he went in the merry-go-round and the bumper cars (with Opa).  The theme this year was winning stuff (junk, that is). They had all these things where you are guaranteed to win something. Basically you buy some piece of crap toy but before you get it your kid gets to catch ducks (see picture), catch balls, pull ropes or something like that. Great fun for him, but not only are the toys junk quality wise, for boys they were primarily weapons. So, we got stuck with like four guns, a light saber, a bowie knife, handcuffs etc. I have to say, Tobias is quite careful with his toys, and some of these toys still work, but as a friend of mine put it: “You pay a lot of money in a short amount of time and you come home with toys that are usually broken within two hours…”, and that pretty much sums it up from a parent’s perspective .

But I have to admit that the joy Tobias had (and still has with these toys) far outweighs the costs…

Kaboutervoetbal

Tobias has reached that age where we should consider organized sports… Well, through one of the soccer clubs in Gouda he has the opportunity to try out soccer. We subscribed him for kaboutervoetbal (literally: gnome soccer), a 10 week program to get to know soccer in an organized setting. Last Saturday was his first time (the third in the series, he could not get in at first but apparently someone did not like it that much and a spot opened up). He did quite well, technically speaking, but more importantly, he enjoyed it thoroughly. I think he was even somewhat proud of himself!

I tried to document some of it and this was my best shot, the one I like most anyway. First they did some simple exercises like driving the ball around cones, kicking and stopping he ball and such. They ended the morning with an actual game. As you can see Tobias was on the Portugal team and they were playing the Netherlands team.

Even though I had to get up early on a Saturday morning (for our measures anyway, it starts at 9), I did enjoy watching my boy having fun!

That same day he also wanted to play (field) hockey with me. We went to a field close to our house and played for a while. I said: “Tobias, what do you like better, soccer or hockey?”. He had to think some and answered: “I like both, I want to do both.”. I said: “Well, Tobias, usually hockey and soccer are at the same time so you have to chose.”. He said: “But papa, I am already a soccer member…” . I guess we’ll try hockey sometime too… and tennis (because that’s what daddy likes ).

Big Boy Legos

At Christmas Nonny had bought Tobias some real Lego’s. Of course we already had quite a bit of the baby stuff, Duplo, but non of the real stuff yet. As I have probably written before, Tobias does not seem to be much of a builder (much to my Engineer’s dismay…), but he has enjoyed playing with the Duplo.

Well, he still likes it, but is starting to realize it is time for the big boy thing. Last weekend he wanted a “light sabre”. As you know I am a pacifist and hence not in favor of such Toys, so, I suggested to get some Star Wars Lego’s that I had seen in the toy store before. He liked that idea, so, we went out to get some.

It turned out it was a bit too advanced, meaning it was advertised to be for 7-14 years… We did see pirate lego’s and knight lego’s for 5-12. He liked the knight stuff, so we got a tower with a big sling shot and some knights.

As you can see it takes him quite some concentration (and time ) to put it together, but he likes the thing and we have been playing with it quite a few times.

Who knows, maybe he will develop some building skills after all .

Building a Hut

Last week I switched my daddy day from Wednesday to Friday. Thursday morning when I took him to school he started talking about a hut. I wasn’t sure where that came from, but I told him we could do that sometime. That night, when I put him to bed he started talking about it again. He told me he would like to build a but “soooooo much”!

The next day, after I picked him up from school, we had to get a gift for a friend. While we were out shopping he saw some candy and said: “Papa, let’s buy that, so we have something to eat in the hut.”. That sealed the deal. We went home, I put Lorelei to bed, got some blankets out and we built a hut under the table. We spent most of the afternoon in there playing games, watching Dinosaur Train, and eating candy.

I was kind of cramped which I noticed the next day by means of a sore shoulder, but it was great fun… Today is my daddy day and this morning he told me he wanted to build a hut again… Let’s see what happens .

Electric Guitar = Cool

Tobias recently got new clothes. Among these clothes were two “cool” shirts. One is the one he is wearing in this picture. It has a pirate ship on it. The other is one with an electric guitar on it. He calls that one his Bob Dylan shirt .

Well, an electric guitar on a shirt is cool, but a real one is even cooler. One of the reasons an electric guitar is cool is because of a Jerry Lee Lewis rendition of Led Zeppelin’s Rock and Roll. It starts out with Jimmy Page on the electric guitar en Tobias loves it. When I put on music he tells me to put on his favorite song, meaning that particular song…

So, the other day I showed him my electric guitars and used my Metal Zone effect, giving it the Jimmy Page like sound. He loved it and wanted to try for himself…

I guess a guitar is also something you have to grow into, size-wise .

Ice Cream

This was just one of those random things. We had just finished our dinner, it was a really nice evening, it was still school vacation, we had just gotten over our jetlag, so hey, let’s go into town and treat ourselves to some ice cream! So, that’s what we did.

I experience such occasions as priceless, just like this picture!

Dino Forest

As I wrote before, today was my first daddy day where everything is back to normal. That makes last week my last daddy day of the vacation. Not only that, also it was a true daddy day because Lisa already had to work. I wanted to do something nice with my kids. Lorelei likes pretty much anything, and Tobias loves dinos, so, I took the to the Dino Forest in Amersfoort. It is actually a zoo with a section where they have life-size dinosaurs.

It was a great day and Tobias was sooooo excited. The dino section really isn’t all that big, but we spent over two hours there! Some dinosaurs are moving, others are just still, like this one. I don’t think Tobias would have put his head into a moving dinosaur… Even though he knows and realizes that dinosaurs are extinct, there was still somewhat of a scare, especially because there were loud roars in the forest too.

Lorelei did not have a care in the world and was just walking from one dino to another pointing and saying “this” and “these”. Tobias was really interested, especially in the ones that he did not know yet. Each dino had a bone (i.e. sign) explaining all about it. They were set up in chronological order starting in the devonian time period (and hence not really dinosaurs, just really big reptiles) all the way through to the cretaceous time period. It was actually quite funny, because everytime we saw a dino that he knew and I would start to read he would say: “Papa, you don’t have to read that one, I already know all that…”.

My little paleontologist…

Three Musketeers

Now, Josephine has two boys as well. They were great company for Tobias. At there house they have a huge playroom with lots of fun stuff like knights and dragons, lots of books and a Nintendo DS. Tobias was new to a lot of that stuff, but Carter and Mason are great friends. They shared all their toys, taught Tobias how to play with them and Carter even shared his bedroom, Tobias got to sleep on the top bunk!

At the beach house Katy had brought her Wii and everyone, including these three guys, played a lot of it. And again, everyone was taking turns (well, most of the time…).

Carter and Mason are almost as crazy about swimming as Tobias is, so, they swam a lot as well. They also did a lot of playing around the pool, with balls, rings, tubes and such. Mason is not so much into jumping in the water, but Carter is and also makes great cannonballs, so, there were a lot of cannonball contests.

So, both Lorelei and Tobias had quite the company during our vacation!

Dr. Tobias, the Paleontologist

Tobias is very much into Dinosaurs. He has been for a while. We read books about dinosaurs, watch TV shows about dinosaurs (Dinosaur Train, which is really funny and educational…). So, what could be better than visiting the Houston Museum of Natural Science with Nonny and Aunt Shelli? Well, apart from swimming, not a whole lot. This was quite the memorable experience for Tobias seeing real dinosaur bones and even whole skeletons. And I believe that Nonny and Aunt Shelli enjoyed the trip just as much as he did…

I had to hear about it afterwards, because this was a trip without mama and papa, we went out to see a movie… My favorite anecdote about this trip came from Nonny. She explained that when they entered the museum there was this dinosaur skeleton right there. There was another boy, maybe 9 years old, with his mother and he exclaimed: “Mommy, mommy, look, there is T-Rex!”. Tobias matter-of-factly said to Nonny: “No nonny he is wrong, that is Allosaurus.” Sure enough, when they went to read the sign Tobais was right, it was Allosaurus…

It is unbelievable how much and how fast he can remember and recognize such things. He knows so many of the names, their features, when they lived (what time period that is) etc. And I keep being impressed with the ease with which he can pronounce the names…

Not only was this a great trip, but Nonny spoiled Tobias too with more books, a t-shirt and some miniature dinosaur skeletons.

Jumping and-a Diving

Often I find it hard to find the picture that “captures it all”. Not this time, though. As I wrote on Lorelei’s blog we had a great vacation. Why? Well, because we saw lots of family and friends, which was great and all, but most of all because our kids had a great time!

Why Tobias had a great time? POOLS! He LOVES swimming and is not afraid at all. As I wrote before he is ready to swim without armbands, and he did without them this whole vacation. He just jumps in and then swims to the side, across the pool, or basically wherever he wants to go. It takes him a while because his technique is not great yet , but he gets there without going under…

Swimming is not his favorite thing in the pool, though. His favorite thing is jumping in the pool. Like I said, this picture kind of captures it all. We visited a total of four pools during our vacation and our primary activity was sitting by, or hanging out in and around pools, watching Tobias make cannonballs and helping Lorelei stay afloat. So, what better image than this one with Tobias hanging in mid-air on his way to a huge cannonball-splash!?

Feeding Fish

This past weekend we had a family reunion with my family. This an annual thing where we all meet at a restaurant for drinks and dinner. It was very nice. We did not see Tobias much though, because he was completely occupied by the fish they had there. They were quite sizable fish and initially Tobias was scared. He did not dare to get too close, let alone, stick his finger in the water. The proprietor showed him how to feed them though and he became more and more confident and ended up feeding them and I think even touching them… It was quite interesting to see that process in motion…

Before the family reunion we went to Lisa’s school for the summer party, which is where Tobias got his pirate face, in case you were wondering…

The Good Brother

 

Tobias is such a good big brother to Lorelei. Granted, sometimes he is not as nice, but that is mutual, and most of the times when one or both of them are really tired. Most of the times they are great together though…. and cute! Check out this picture where Tobias had seen Lorelei wander off on her own and told me: “Don’t worry papa, I’ll go get her…”. And that’s what he did.

On Thursdays the three of us walk to school together. First we have to take Lorelei to the daycare, which is basically around the corner from our house. The other day Tobias even asked me if he could hold Lorelei´s hand and walk her to the daycare…. So sweet! He is also really good when it comes to waiting for me, for example when I have to lock the door, or open the car or something like that. He´ll tell me: “I’ll hold her hand papa.” and does just that.

Needless to say once more that I love my boy…

Water Spayer

On that same daddy-day (see Lorelei's blog) Tobias was playing around making me, Lorelei and himself laugh with a flower sprayer. I like this picture, because you can see how much he was into it, and the timing was just right…. :-) He played with that thing for a long time…

Gardening…

 

Like I said in my previous post, Tobias likes to do jobs. Here he is gardening. This was actually quite impressive. He had never done that before, but I was busy doing something else and he wanted to help me. I wasn’t really doing something he could safely help me with so I thought I’d give him another job. I told him to trim bush, and that is exactly what he did, and quite neatly too… I did not have to do any additional work on it (except cleaning up a little bit of the mess…).

I was quite proud of my boy. (He is not exactly wearing his gardening outfit, but he had been a pirate before and hadn’t taken off his outfit yet….).

Building a Robot

Tobias is into lots of stuff. One of the things he is into at this moment is Robots. Thas is probably because he has a robot book, which we read to him from time to time. It is one of those kids science books that tells you all about something in a kids way. Very nice!

Anyway, in that book there are a few art projects, one of which it to build your own robot. As I was working on the patio, Tobias and Lisa were working on their own project: making a robot. I saw and heard Tobias about the steps, giving me reports about the current step and the steps already taken. I think it was a six step project :-). In this picture you can see the final step: putting on the head! He was sooooo proud of his handywork…

The robot is currently standing in our window (or rather, leaning against our window, for it would topple over without the support) for everyone to see.

I think he did a great job too. He is into doing jobs right now, and, making money with it. That is because he wanted to have something I did not want him to have: a Laser gun. It is one of those toy guns with foam darts that you can shoot across the room… Well, I told him that he could buy it himself if he’d make some money. I told him he could help me or Lisa do jobs in and around the house. So, he has been helping with the cleaning, cutting the grass, painting, renewing our patio, and, he made enough money to buy his very own laser gun! He is quite proud of himself, and needless to say, so am I (although I still do not like toy guns of any kind…). And the good thing is, he still has money left over in his piggy bank :-).

Actually, I should continue this anecdote because it is so funny… When he finally decided to get the gun Lisa and Tobias were going into town to buy it. Lisa had given Tobias a wallet to carry his money. He was all set to go and they left. Well, they were back within 5 minutes and I was like: “wow, that was quick Tobias!”. Tobias was obviously embarrased… turns out he had forgotten his wallet…

Easter in Vaals

We went away for the Easter weekend. We rented a little vacation home in Vaals with friends. Our friends have two children as well, a girl, Imogen, who is Tobias' age and a boy, Euan, Lorelei's age. So, that's a perfect match I guess. Here are Tobias and Imogen hunting for eggs in the Vaals, Limburg (south of the Netherlands) scenery.

We didn't have the nicest weather during our weekend, but that did not really matter because most of our time was spent either in the swimming pool, or in the indoor play-area. Tobias swam without armbands for the first time and actually swam... No laps or anything yet, but at least something like quarter laps, without sinking or going under. He even jumped of the started blocks at the deep end without a problem.... So, I guess he can swim now.... all he needs is some swimming technique and he will be pretty much ready for his swimming diploma :-).


For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle

Down the Slide

Like I said in previous posts, spring is here! That means playing outside, and also, going to the playground. Last year they renewed a playground just a few blocks from our house. It is really nice now and we went there a week ago (or so). Both Tobias and Lorelei had lots of fun, albeit, in completely different way, except this one: going down the slide. At first Lorelei was watching Tobias do that and then laughing at him. Then we kind of helped Lorelei slide down and then Tobias wanted to go down the slide together! That was so sweet of him and as you can see, it makes for a sweet picture too, right?


For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle

Biking.... Together

Tobias is a real biker now. He is pretty much a full blown traffic participant. This morning we rode our bikes to school together and he is doing sooooo well, ans he is sooooo proud :-) (So am I of course...). Since spring is here and more outside playing is done, there had also been some biking together. Lorelei has Tobias' old tricycle and Tobias on his own bike and off we go into the Poort (alley way) behind our house.

Fun for all, and worth a picture!


For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle

Olympic Speed Skater

Of course we just had the Olympics... Needless to say Tobias was quite interested, especially in speed skating (that's all we Dutchies do, although we did win gold in the snowboard downhill this time...). We watched some of the races and he was very intrigued by the whole start routine. It kind of goes like this:
- "Go to the start" -> Tobias goes to the edge of the rug
- "Ready" -> Tobias bends his knees and puts one hand on the floor
- "Pang" (which sounds more like "Click",with his (now broken) toy gun) -> Tobias starts sliding/running around the living room
- "Ding Ding Ding" -> Tobias does his last round
- "Yeah" -> Tobias won gold :-)
- And over and over and over...

This is Tobias in action. As you can see there is still room for improvement, but as you can also see, he is having loads of fun, and that's what really counts, right!?


For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle

Car Car...

Tobias is such a good big brother to Lorelei (most of the times...). He'll play with her, hug her, kiss her, cuddle with her and everything. Sometimes, when she's crying, he'll get her a toy or make a joke and in doing so, calm her down and even make her laugh. Sure, Lorelei laughs a lot, and she laughs a lot at her Papa and Mama, but she laughs the most and the hardest at Tobias! I am pretty sure she likes her big brother :-).

Two weeks ago when my parents were baby-sitting (which they do on fridays) I came home to this picture. My dad had put them in a box and he was pushing them around the living room. Tobias told me it was their car, so, I guess he was taking his sister for "a-ridin' in his Car Car...".


For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle