Sinterklaas

Yes, Sinterklaas is in town again and you know what that means… Shoes by the fire-place… So, that’s what we did and guess what, he actually stopped by and put something in their shoes . Oh, and that something was on Tobias’ list too. The whole process of making the list was sooooo cute this year. He can write now (much better than last year anyway) so every once in a while he would say something like: “Oh wait papa, I’ll be right back…”. He’d run upstairs and write something in his black notebook (that I had given him) on his “list”. The first thing he wrote was a nintendo DS followed by Bey Blade. When he first started talking about it he wasn’t very clear as to what it was. He called it “bley bley”, which is I guess how his friends who do have one call them. It is a rather advanced spinning top which can “battle” other Bey Blades. It is also what Tobias got . Lorelei got some Pooh-bear Duplo (Legos). She was quite happy with it but was way more interested in the candy in her boot .

Music Show

Tobias joined a trial-music-class, much in the same way he once joined a trial-soccer-training. Such things are done through a program called “brede school” (literally: “wide school”). Most schools in Gouda are part of this program and what it does is, it enables children (and parents) to try things without having to become a member right away. So, this time it was music. It was a series of three lessons during which they sang, did rhythm and melody. Last Friday was the third and last time and parents (and grandparents, my dad came too) were allowed in for the last ten minutes of the session to see the performance or “The Show” as Tobias called it.
They performed a little piece of music with all the components (voice, rhythm and melody) they had studied. Tobias’ part was very minimal… It was a song about strange noises and Tobias had to rub his hand around this drum to make the sound of the wind. I enjoyed it just the same! The kids had the opportunity to register for a whole year of classes like these, but Tobias declined. He wants to take guitar lessons… (I am providing these now and he is actually making progress quite rapidly, but we’ll be looking for a real guitar teacher soon if he keeps this level of enthusiasm about it…)

School Picture

Like Lorelei, Tobias had his school picture taken too. I am not quite as satisfied with his than I am with hers, but hey, it’s the school picture, so I will put it on my blog for you… We even have two shots of Tobias, but neither of them are as cute or spontaneous as Lorelei’s. I guess when it comes to photographing kids it is not just about photography skills, it is mostly about kid-skills…

Big Helpful Brother

We gave Lorelei a CD Player for her birthday. Tobias has had one for a while now so he knows exactly how it works. This picture was taken on the morning of her birthday. We all went up into her room, sang Happy Birthday and gave our gifts. Tobias gave her CDs and we gave her the CD player. Needless to say she wanted to try it right away… Well, as you can see Tobias helped her out. In this picture he is teaching her how the CD player works. And… he is a very good teacher (or Lorelei a very good student ) because this lesson was all it took for Lorelei to be able to do it herself!

Thank you very much buddy-buster!

Our Jack-O-Lantern…

Designed and co-carved by Tobias Quinn de Pee .

Trik R Trit

Like I said, we had a Halloween party on Saturday. We did not go outside to go trick or treating. We did have lots of treats of course. Today was the real Halloween, so we did some additional Halloween stuff tonight. Tobias came up with the idea to go trick or treating (“like we did the year before last year” he added). So, we put his costume on and went outside. We pretended to go around the block, but the turned back to ring the doorbell. I had to hide while he waited for the door to open. It was so sweet!

After that we went inside and did another Halloween thing: we watched a Halloween movie (“Monsters vs. Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins from Outer Space”) while enjoying the treats .

Before he went to bed he did not want to read, but draw on his white board. We do that sometime, we take turns drawing a picture and then the other person has to guess what it is. The first picture Tobias drew was of trick or treating. He drew himself and Lisa, each with a speech bubble. Tobias’ said: “Trik R Trit”…

As you know he is learning how to write, in Dutch. He is doing really well with reading and also with writing in Dutch. He is starting to be able to distinguish between Dutch and English reading-wise. As you can see from this example he uses the Dutch sounds to spell an English word. Very interesting development… oh, and kind of sweet too, right?

Vampire…

Halloween, always exciting. Tobias had his idea for a costume long before Halloween this year: he wanted to be a Vampire. Good thing they have good costume stores in the US. Aunt Shelli did some serious Halloween shopping and got him this Vampire suit. I did not put the best picture of the suit on though, but I did put the coolest picture on. I love this picture.

We had a party on Saturday and this picture was taken just before that party. Tobias and Lorelei we both so excited and Tobias was waiting to open the door to our first guests and scare them good! They were kind of running through the house and I was just kind of taking some pictures… And then I took this one.

I love it! I hope you do too .

PS: The costume came with make-up. Tobias had that on, of course, but the next day his face was all red… some sort of allergic reaction… That was a bit unfortunate…