Cooking with Oma

We have two Christmas Days in the Netherlands. The first of course on the 25th, the second on the 26th. I don't know why that is, but it is considered a national holiday and nobody works. I think the main idea behind it, or at least the main use taken out of it, is that you can celebrate one day with your own family and the other with your family in law. Well, for us that is a bit difficult considering the distance between the two.... So, we generally have first and second Christmas year instead of Christmas day.... This year we were in the Netherlands and spent both days with my parent. One day at our house, the other at my parents house.

This picture was taken on second Christmas day at my parents house. Tobias is sitting on the counter in the kitchen. He is "helping" my mom with the cooking. Apparently the counter seat is his favorite in the kitchen. He even ends up eating his meal there sometimes! Anyway, I thought this was a cute picture.... :-) 

Christmas!

Christmas already came and went as I am writing this, but of course before it came we decorated the christmas tree. That was lots of fun, also for Tobias. Not only did we buy a fake tree (our first one ever, we always used to have a real tree, but I have to admit, a fake tree has its advantages too...), we also had mostly unbreakable ornaments.... This was mainly because they were nice, but maybe subconciously a little bit so that Tobias could safely help us decorate the tree... which he did as you can see in this picture.

He thoroughly enjoyed decorating the tree and having it in the house, and of couse watching the cats using the tree-skirt as a slip-and-slide (I don't really know what that is, but I heard that's what it was like...). He also made his own ornament at the daycare, and of course we put it up. It didn't really go with our "red and gold" theme (it is purple...) but hey, what can you do if your son brings home his own ornament.... :-)?

When we put all the gifts under the tree, Tobias wanted to start unwrapping right away. We told him that he had to wait until Christmas and that's what he did.... He only partly unwrapped that first gift (just a small corner was torn loose). We opened gifts on Christmas day with my parents, my brother, Lisa's sister and the three of us. Tobias got the gifts from under the tree and handed them out... He seemed to enjoy doing that although he did get distracted by his new toys!

We had a very nice Christmas, Tobias' second, and his first in the Netherlands.... 

Unexpected Initiative...

One of my previous post concerned me putting Tobias in my shoes and taking a picture... A rather staged, but at the same time quite funny picture. This time I am posting a picture of Tobias in Lisa's shoes. This time it is not staged at all, but entirely spontaneous....

We were all sort of hanging out in our bedroom. I read Tobias some books, but he had enough of that. He was just playing around on the floor a little and Lisa and I were just cuddling and being lazy. We weren't paying much attention to what Tobias was doing, except for the occasional laugh about him chatting away to himself. Suddenly we hear him saying: "Walking Mommy Shoes!". We look, and there he was, walking around the bed in mommies shoes! Sooooooo funny, even moreso because he had them on the wrong foot....

So, I dashed downstairs, got the camera and shot this picture! 

Sinterklaas

As you probably know, in the Netherlands we kind of have 2 Santas.... One comes on December 5th on a white horse, accompanied by "Zwarte Pieten", rides on the rooftops and throws gifts into the chimnee... The other one is just like the American one, except generally he is not our primary gift giver....

Needless to say that we were celebrated Sinterklaas... I guess Tobias is a lucky dude because he gets to celebrate both... Anyway, like I said, we celebrated Sinterklaas. He usually puts his gift in a sack ("De zak van Sinterklaas"), probably to protect the from all the soot in the chimnee... Well, Tobias was ready for gifts this time! As you can see in this picture he practically disappeared in the sack getting all the gifts. The cute thing was that his primary reaction was to hand the gifts out to other people, although, once he got the first one of his own he was less inclined to hand the gifts over....

One of the funniest and most unexpected moments was when he pulled out a gift from my parents, a Bob the Builder Lego set, shook it (unopened) and exclaimed "Lego!"... We all had to laugh...

Note: he already had some lego's and plays with them frequently. I guess he recognized the sound they make... 

Play House

Tobias and I have this new game: Playing House. Thas does not mean playing house like a mommy and a daddy and a child, no, we build a house. Tobias sits on the couch and I use the pillows to build a little house around him. He absolutely loves it. The best thing is when I put the roof on and he sticks his head out and I go "Peek-a-boo"! He can't get enough of it and laughs like crazy, literally to the point of burping/throwing up... (I admit, that was a bit disgusting...).

Anyway, I started this game with him this past tuesday and he remembers stuff now, so sure enough, the next day he was walking around saying "Papa, build, ouse" over and over. Since Tobias has so much fun playing the game, I enjoy it too. He runs to the couch, throws the pillows off and sits in the corner. Then I build the house around him which he then tears apart while we are both saying "Peek-a-boo". Then we rebuild the house, and so on.

Doesn't that sound like fun? In this picture Tobias is sitting in his house getting ready for the "peek-a-boo"-moment. Like I said, Tobias can't seem to get enough of it so I am expecting a lot of playing house for the weeks to come... :-).

Loads of Fun in a Car...

This is probably the trillionth time I am telling this, but I still love my daddy days. Unfortunately there is only one every two weeks, but fortunately there is one every two weeks. Like two weeks ago, when this picture was taken. I usually take my time getting up and getting ready. Most of the times I take Tobias to my bed and we cuddle for a while, or I read him some books, or we listen to some music. Then we have breakfast together, both of us still in our PJ's and sometimes we spend half the day like that...

That was also the case on this daddy day. We were just goofing off and Lisa had put out this push cart for him the day before. Well, he likes to push Mr. Potato Head (Tato..... Ead) around in it, or tinky winky, or elmo, but he also likes to be pushed around in it. He calls it a car and he askes me "ide, Tadas ide!" (Tadas is what he calls himself these days...). Of course I am a willing daddy and I race him around the house....

Tobias can have loads of fun like that in his "car", and of course daddy does too!

The Wrong Shoes...

Some frustrating misfortunes with blogger were my part earlier this week when I tried to post this picture. I'll try to rewrite the story I had typed up to go along with it....

Tobias loves his shoes. He has a whole ritual for putting them on and taking them off, especially taking them off. We take them off since he is not able to do that himself yet. Then he walks to the back door and bangs them together. Then he walks to the front door and he puts them away. All these actions are accompanied by exclamations like "Oes Off", "Nean Oes", "Oes Away"...

He also likes our shoes, particularly mine. They are too heavy to "Ean" them, but he can bring them to me one by one and he can clean them away one by one. He can also put them on and walk on them.... like in this picture. He was actually able to take a few steps in them :-) As you can see he is enjoying it!