Winter Wonderland...

The snow is too early this year, in the Netherlands anyway and too early meaning: too early for having a white Christmas :-). But, of course not too early to have some fun. In fact, would it have been a few days later we would be missing it altogether... Anyway, Tobias was quite excited (actually, extremely excited) when he looked out the window this morning and saw everything covered with a blanket of snow... Of course he had seen snow before, but it does not happen that often over here. We had some serious snow and ice last year and that was great fun, but this morning we had some fun too.

He was somewhat disappointed that I would not let him bike too school. Instead we walked and he liked that because that enabled him to toss some snowballs here and there... On a wall, on a tree, on the ice, in the water.... loads of fun. And then of course on the shoolyard at other children :-). Everybody was excited, even the parents who gladly joined the snowball fun! I only had my phone on me to capture the moment, hence the bad picture quality, but it is better than nothing, right?

I hope there will be still some snow to play with when he comes home from school today...

Update (2010.01.14): There was. As a matter of fact, there was enough to build a snowman...! And we did. Before I post anything about Tobias' Christmas vacation I am going to post a picture of Tobias and our snowman, made and taken after school that very afternoon!





For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle

Biker Boy

Tobias is quite the biker these days. In my perception there are two main reasons for this:
1. His friends are better and faster at biking than he is...
2. He really likes biking and is actually quite proud of himself

Last week on my daddy day I picked him up from school (where he biked himself) he told me: "Papa, I want to go on a really long biking trip with you.". Well, I wasn't so sure about that since the weather was not all that great and of course we would have to take Lorelei with us, but I took our chances and went anyway. How can I deny my boy an opportunity to go biking really far :-).

Anyway, before we left we first had to grab some cookies, because, as Tobias explained, we have to rest somewhere and then I have to eat a cookie so I can have more power in my legs. Well, who could argue with that? :-) (and also, that is exactly what he did with his Opa two weeks earlier :-)). I took a route where I would still be able to make it a short ride in case it started raining. Well, it did not start raining until we were almost back home. And, we took quite a ride as you can see (when you click on the link). We went for about 8 km (5 mi). The benches in this picture (our only stop) are at the turning point in the trip. On the way back he started complaining about being tired, but he did the whole way by himself.

I did have some scares (as did he, because of my reaction I think) because at one point we had to cross a very busy intersection. There are lights, also for the bikers, but it still takes him quite some time to cross the road. Anyway, just as we came to the other side, a moped approached from the right distracting (and startling) Tobias who made a slight leftward move and as a consequense missed the bike path and ended up on the wrong side of a lane separater (the size of a curb) among the cars! My goodness that scared me, but I could not just drop my bike and grab him because (as you can see) Lorelei was on my bike. So, I got him to stop, went close to him and dragged him, bike and all, over the curb. Other than that the trip went fine :-).


For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle

Pirate Tobias

Sinterklaas was good to Tobias this year. He got the most gifts by far! He got a marble run, a book, handpuppets, sweets, but the main reason he got the most gifts is because he got a pirate outfit with all the accessories (wrapped separately :-)).

I am kind of a pacifist, so, I have quite a serious problem with weapons of any kind and hence, I do not like my kids to have toy weapons. Well, I have come to realize that weaponry is really hard to avoid, and if you try too hard all other toys become weapons, like a tinkertoy shooter or a water gun or a stick sword etc.

What I do like is the fact that Tobias does a lot of pretend playing. He pretends to be all sorts of stuff ranging from a police man to a bad guy to a hamster to even a mammoth just this morning :-). Sometimes he doesn't need anything to get really into this pretend play, he'll just pretend he has a gun, a car, a bike, or whatever it is that he needs. So, we thought it would be nice to get him some dress-up clothes. Lately he is into a lot of stuff involving weaponry, including police, pirates and knights. As you can see the dress-up kit for Tobias included a pirate hat, an eye patch and a pirate shirt (you can see the white collar in this picture). It also included a compass, a treasure map, two money bags with gold and silver in it, and....... a sword. Well, actually a dagger and a sword. A dagger made of wood and a sword made of plastic. All of these items, but mainly the clothes and the sword, have already gotten quite some playtime this past week :-).

Tobias got even more dress-up clothes this year, because at school they had a "pietenochtend" where everybody got to dress-up like "zwarte piet" (Sinterklaas' helper) or Sinterklaas. Lisa bought him a pieten-suit, but he preferred Sinterklaas. Since the pieten-suit was about two sizes too big Lisa decided to get him a fitting Sinterklaas outfit and he went to the "pietenochtend" as Sinterklaas. For some reason I only have a picture in his piet-outfit...

For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle

Milestone: Biking to School

As I wrote before, being able to bike is quite the milestone in the Netherlands. Well, Tobias reached that one a while back. Yet, he did nog bike to school on his own bike yet. He kept telling me he would start doing that when he is five... This picture is not Tobias on his way to school, but he did bike to school for the first time last Thursday. He didn't pick the best day to start, because is was pouring down with rain and by the time we got there he was soaking wet, but we made is nonetheless. Tobias was soooooo proud.

It took Tobias quite some serious training to reach this point. A week or two ago two friends came over to play. They suggested they'd ride their bikes. Tobias was not quite as well trained yet and he could not keep up. That night he practised until dinnertime. He was biking up and down the alleyway behind our house in the dark! He did that for almost two weeks and I guess by that time he figured he was ready for the real biking-world: Biking to school.

I have to admit I am quite proud too (but terrified at the same time....).


For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle

Pooped...

Gijs is one of Tobias' best friends at the moment. He lives a few houses down from us and he also is in the same school and class as Tobias. So, they see eachother on a daily basis. A lot of times they will play together after school, sometimes outside, but recently, being the fall and all, more inside than out. This picture was taken after a lot of playing outside and as you can see both boys are pretty pooped. They kind of just crashed on the couch and watched a movie (I think it was Cars this time).


For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle

Electric Guitar

Tobias has had a guitar of his own for quite some time now as you can see here. It is still working, all the strings still there, just a few scrapes and bruises here and there, but in all Tobias has been quite careful with it, as I think he should be with any musical instrument. Recently he has been grabbing it every once in a while to play a tune for his sister. He'll strum the guitar and sometimes sing a song like "When you're smiling", which is pretty definitely Lorelei's favorite song at the moment.

Well, the other day I was playing my electric guitar. Tobias has take an interest in the electric guitar in the past, but he has only been watching me play and listening (and sometimes complaining it hurts his ears because it is too loud... :-)). This time he asked me if he could play. Knowing Tobias to be careful with his musical instruments (:-)), I didn't have too much of a problem with that, except that it is still way too big for him to hold. So, we held it together. Tobias strummed, I picked the chords, and Lisa took this picture.


For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle

Halloween...

The Netherlands is not much of a Halloween celebrating country. Yet, we have bilingual and binational children, so, it is only fair they get traditions from both sides of the Atlantic. So, we celebrated this year. Tobias talked about all the candy that he likes and about what candy you need to eat when you want to be Dutch and what candy you need to eat when you want to be America. For example, you cannot eat "Drop" when you want to be American, yet you have to eat "Drop" if you want to be Dutch :-) (Drop is kind of similar to licorice, yet different... you have to try it to know it...).

Well, one of the things you do when you are American is celebrate Halloween; carve a pumpkin, dress up and go trick-or-treating. And that's what Tobias did. Lisa got a pumpkin and they carved it together. It came out quite well I might add, as you can see for yourself. Then, Tobias and I were going to scare Lisa. We were making a costume and had decided we would go around the back and then ring our doorbell and scare mama, his only trick-or-treat address on his route.... (since we didn't want to bother all the Halloween-unaware Dutchies...). You can see his costume in this picture. He is a "spider-ghost", the sheet being ghostly and his hat being a spider. It gave Lisa quite a scare (:-)) and it got Tobias some M&M's :-).

It was a nice Halloween.


For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle