Spring is Right Around the Corner!

Just a week until Spring arrives- hooray! Today was the warmest day we've had yet with temps reaching the 60s and we are ready for more! In the meantime, I will be skipping straight to summer with a trip home to Miami this weekend to see family and some friends. But before I go, here's what we've been up to lately:

Jude has started soccer classes and my heart sings. We run around doing little games and drills. It is all in Dutch so I do my best. It is our special Saturday morning time. He likes to play goalie and is working on not using his hands :)

The warmer weather means park dates with friends.

I look forward to the crocuses blooming early each spring at Haarlemmermeerstation, which we pass on our way to Montessori. I'd run and frolic in the field if it weren't for the bike, car, bus and tram lines you have to frogger across to get there!

More spring scenes in the city

And this is our first Spring in our first house with a garden so I am loving seeing what comes up. Our very own crocuses! I'm trying not to get too excited, but it is looking like the tree in front of our house is a magnolia tree! The buds are just starting to pop and I just hope I don't miss the peak bloom while I'm gone!

We are whipping our garden into shape. 

Fingers crossed the last of the yucky winter viruses are behind us. I'll miss these couch snuggles though. Maeve is finally back to a good sleeping routine, just in time for the first tooth to be coming in! It's always something! 

These two are interacting more and more. Some sweet moments and some bad ones, too. Jude has discovered that pushing her over is a very good way to get our attention when he wants it...

Smart girl is wary. 

Maeve visited daddy at work and his students were smitten.

Look at that fluffy hair!

And most importantly, we've been celebrating the birth of this amazing guy! Last weekend was a bowling party with coworkers. It's been a LONG time since we've had the kind of night where we ended up stuffing our faces with McDonalds at midnight in the back of an Uber. And we satisfied our Mexican/Margarita cravings with a dinner out last night.

New Silly Walks shirt

Birthday boy and his adoring kiddos

Maeve turned 10 months the same day. Her first teeth are just starting to poke through. She's over just sitting around. She wants to pull up on things and stand with our support.

Yesterday was also a big day because of the Dutch elections. We were really fearful that a Trump wannabe, Geert Wilders, was going to win. Anti-immigrant, anti-Islam, anti-EU. The polls had him leading for months. We tried to check in on the results as they came in, but couldn't make any sense of the graphs used!! 

We awoke to fabulous news! We won't know for sure for a few weeks as the votes are being hand counted due to concerns of Russian interference. For real. 82.2% of eligible voters voted, which is amazing!

It was a great start to a beautiful spring day, which ended with our first dinner outside in our garden. I hope we can eat outside from now on- cleaning the floor beneath Maeve's high chair in the bane of my existence. Leave it for the birds and our friendly neighborhood cat!

Our new hammock is set up. Jude insisted I also get in and then it broke and we all fell to the ground. We're ok and the hammock is fixed!