It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas 2016 Edition

I am so excited for Christmas this year! Excited to experience Jude's joy in the season. Excited to be hosting our parents. Excited to have a first Christmas in our new house. Excited to share baby's first Christmas with our sweet Maeve. Excited to travel to Innsbruck for some fun in the snow and the Christmas Markets. 

The Classic Christmas Sonos station has been humming, packages are arriving daily and we are getting festive over here! 

First up, getting the tree. We went to a massive garden center that Pete equated to the Ikea of Christmas tree stores. You had to weave through nearly 1/2 mile of Christmas decorations before getting to the tree section. As we noted in year's past, Nordmann trees are king here. Still getting used to their Charlie Brown-esque shape. The trees were separated by height, but otherwise just laid one on top of the other in huge rows. This made it really hard to examine and pick "the perfect tree." So we settled on the best we could find in the pile. Back at home, we realized it was far to big for the space and took our garden cutters to it. We had some issues getting the tree to stand up straight (and stand up at all) that harkened back to my childhood with Pops losing his cool while we whined to decorate the thing already. Boy does history repeat. We were going to erect the tree and string the lights while Jude napped so that it would be ready to decorate when he was up. Except he choose not to nap and instead just whined about wanting to decorate the tree while we struggled to get the tree to stand and to keep our cool! So familiar! We have the big guy tied to an anchor in our wall and also discreetly supported by a 2x4. Fingers crossed! 

Which way to the trees? 

An attempt to get a cute pic of Jude, Annabel and Charlotte by the tree, them in their festive "jumpers" and all. An attempt. 

We rediscovered Elf Yourself and had loads of fun. Maeve's face is the best. My aunt Margaret also sent us a Jacqui Lawson interactive online advent calendar that Jude is so into. He also loves playing the "snap game" every morning where he tears a ring off the advent chain. 

I found these Gingerbread kits at Ikea. No icing included, but otherwise a relatively painless process to make a cute house. This one is 90% me, 10% Jude. He got really good at using the icing tube! He asks every day if he can eat it, but we've told him he has to wait for Nana and Pops to see it. 

"You want to try a bit, mom." Yes, I do!

Last Friday night after a long week at school, we searched Netflix for a toddler friendly Christmas movie. Rudolph and Frosty weren't available to watch, but The Santa Clause was. I fast forwarded through the part where Santa falls off the roof to spare Jude any trauma and he was otherwise captivated! Such fun to start sharing these traditions with him. We were so good with limiting Jude's screen time when he was a baby. I have no idea how we'll do it with Maeve. Shown below was this Friday's post-school movie pick- Mickey's Christmas. 

 This year's Christmas baby.

And the most festive of all: We drove 25 minutes to Haarlem today to experience their Christmas market. It coincided with the Jopen beer brewery's winter fest so it was a no brainer. Lots of Christmas cheer and lots of people! Not fun to navigate the stroller through the crowds. We loved the live music though and of course the gluhwein and oliebollen.

Outside Jopen was a Christmas bouncy castle where Jude jumped for joy until we heard Santa's bell. We ran to meet him. Our first encounter with a dutch Santa. He was fist bumping the children and then took to the mic to sing strange Christmas songs. He did speak to Jude in English though and took pictures with us. Jude was so happy to see him and didn't want to leave his sight. We found him a second time so Jude could tell him what he wanted for Christmas. A trombone. Great.

Barefoot from the bouncy castle.

Getting his groove on to Santa's singing

Merry, merry!

A Visit From Sint Nic (the skinny, papal-like one from Spain)

Today is the day of Sinterklaas! We have been seeing the "big" man and his Pieten for the last few weeks, but today was his visit to ISA, a grand affair complete with Sint arriving on his white horse, Amerigo, to the screams of all of the children. Tonight is "Pakjesavond" (little present night) where Dutch families exchange gifts.

Last year, I had had enough of the Sint season only half way through. This year, it flew by and I would still be happy to have it last a few more days. This is partially because I finally learned the words to the little Sinterklaas ditties so I was not just humming "la, la, las" like last year. Jude was into it again this year, but not with the same fever as last year. Last year we would watch the nightly Sinterklaas journal on TV while he would jump up and down on the sofa yelling "Sinterklaas!" This year he didn't even want to watch it on television, much preferring Peppa or Mickey Mouse instead! Bummer because it is a good way to learn some dutch (and we could use a break from Peppa)! Also last year we were leaving mid way through December to go to the States for Christmas so I wanted Sint season to be over so I could get into the true Christmas spirit. This year, all of the grandparents are coming to us so the holiday season is (hopefully) going to feel really long.

On Sunday we went to a Sinterklaas/Christmas carols violin and piano concert for children. I sat in the back with Maeve and watched as Jude got up between every song, walked over to one of the many bowls of pepernoten and stuffed his face with the delicious ginger spiced cookies! After the concert, we drove to Westerpark for their monthly Sunday market, this one with a Sinterklaas theme. Both kids fell asleep in the car and we ingeniously rigged a double stroller by putting Maeve's car seat in the basket beneath Jude's stroller seat. Then Pete and I had an hour long date "without" kids strolling through the market and eating lunch! We ran into a friend and were literally like, "sorry, can't stop to chat. Both kids are sleeping and we are not going to ruin this!

Sint Sighting at the Westergasfabriek Sunday Market this weekend

After the parade into the parking lot today, Sint went around the school visiting with all of the lower school students. He left presents for the kids in the boots and

Not Sint related, but isn't she cute?!

More Thanks to Give for Holiday Visitors!

Last week we had a wonderful visit from Uncle Matt, Aunt Krista and cousin Addy (17 months). This was our third Thanksgiving in the Netherlands and our third time having American visitors! We know how fortunate we are for that. So who's coming next year?! Also true to Thanksgiving form, we had sick kiddos on our hands (year one was Jude with the chicken pox). This year they apparently had some bacterial respiratory thing and were both finishing their course of antibiotics (yep, the MD prescribed antibiotics without me even asking for them. That's how we know it was serious!). They are fully recovered now and I give THANKS for healthy kids!!

The kiddos get more and more interactive with each other with each visit, which is so fun to see. And Maeve got to meet Aunt Krista and Addy for the first time!

Pete will always have to work on Thanksgiving and the day after, but the rest of us where able to have some fun. On Thanksgiving day, we had minimal prep to do thanks to the butcher cooking the bird again and no parade to watch in the AM (we tuned into slingbox in the evening to catch the end), so we headed downtown for some sight seeing. Thinking to eat light in preparation for the big meal, we started with oliebollen (fried dough balls) and then a mega brunch at Greenwoods. Whoops! Both girls were sleeping during lunch though, so it was a real treat to enjoy a leisurely meal! 

Oliebollen were a hit

Sleeping Addy

Sleeping Maeve (far left)

After picking up Jude and then the bird, the Durning brothers took over the kitchen prepping the sides. The prep and subsequent sit down dinner were totally chaotic with three tired kiddos. Could have used some more adult hands on deck! So after all of the munchkins were put to bed, the adults settled in for some relaxed apple pie. Well, I thought it was apple pie. A mom friend brought it to a playdate I hosted last week and in line with being totally lazy on the Thanksgiving prep, we decided to just have that instead of making our own pie. Then we cut into our apple pie and determined it was some sort of lemon almond cake. Whoops again! 

Friday we were back on museumplein for a big museum day including Addy's first trip to the Rijks museum.

Saturday we went to the pancake house in the bos for brunch. We took turns biking and it was a beautiful, sunny, crisp late fall day for it.

Cuties

Addy was a fan of the pancakes!

Saturday was also Opa's birthday so we enjoyed a group google chat. 

Getting crafty

Sunday was spent at our mall. While that sounds lame, it was a lot of fun! The Piet train was in full swing, Sinterklaas himself was at the Bijenkorf department store (Sinterklaas! I know him!), there were Olibollen to be had, shopping at Hema and the brand new Amstelveen Christmas Market complete with ice skating rink was set up. We hit the market last and everyone was spent so I look forward to going back later in the season to soak it up.

Mouth stuffed with kruidnoten!

A failed cousin photo attempt

Thank you for the visit M, K & A! We know it is a long way to come with a kiddo and are so glad you made the trip.