KissKus

Adding some colour

Just around the corner of our street there is a huge field. It's quite extraordinary that in our small, overcrowded country this field even exist. After all, how many houses could not be build on this piece of land? However, it's a beautiful place surrounded by old trees. It even has a decorative old fence!

It is very green though. And over the past weeks I found myself fantasizing about a little more colour in there. So I started collecting seeds from our garden and this morning Simon and I went on our mission to create a flowerfield!

He loved scattering the seeds everywhere and continually found a better spot. At some places the grass was so high it almost reached his face. Of course that only added to the fun!

We had lots of poppy-seed (we have so many in the garden) and these pink flowers that I don't know the English name for.

I expect we will be making many more trips to the fields this summer with fresh supplies of seeds. And then we'll have to wait until next year in order to see whether our plan worked!

Birthday recap

The birthday girl:

The preparations:

The friends:

The presents:

The refreshments:

The turds:

The longest drawing ever:

The crafts:

The end:

Follow that gnome!

Yesterday afternoon I went cycling with the children. Amber loves cycling on her own bike and it goes very well too, even in busy traffic. Fortunately, she's a good listener and she already knows the traffic rules by heart.

So anyway, off we went to a nearby castle. Sounds good, doesn't it... a nearby castle?! And it is good! It's lovely there. Cute castle and lots of woods and meadows where you can walk and cycle. Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of the castle itself, but from their website you can get a good impression. Here you see the back of the castle from afar:

We took a break at the playground. The children played while I read a magazine in the sun... all was good.

If you want to know about the gnome (that I squeal about in a voice that can't possibly mine!) then click the link below (it'll probably take a while to download).

Download mei2007_357.MOV

By the way, I'm going to post more crafty topics again... all this children/life stuff must be getting boring! To proof my good intentions a photo of a new tissueholder?! Well alright then ;))

Food for thought

Six years ago I graduated from university.
When deciding what I wanted to study one thing was very clear to me: I had to pick something that I would really enjoy, otherwise I wouldn't be able to stay focused and motivated for four more than four years.
I chose to study English language & culture and later narrowed it down to contemporary English literature. Thankfully it was the right choice. I enjoyed it immensely and was lucky enough to find myself at the best English faculty in the country (at least at that time).
I certainly wasn't a great student, but for the amount of time I put in, I wasn't bad either. All went well until I had to write my dissertation. Alone at the computer without structure... it wasn't a good situation for me. Of course, it didn't help that we got married, moved house and had a baby all in the same year that I was supposed to write my dissertation. At my graduation my tutor in his speech said that it had been a double labour for me and it truly was. I handed in the final version of my dissertation on the 6th of June 2001, early next morning my waters broke and a couple of hours later I was a mother. From student life to parenthood in 24 hours... it was a crazy time. When I came to pick up my diploma my 3-weeks old daughter came along (and behaved perfectly).

Anyway, as I said I'm so glad I chose to study English literature. I learned SO much then and I know it's a basic knowledge that I'll always carry around with me and will be useful in whatever I do. I've never had a career in mind when I was studying and I definitely don't think it's a "shame" that I don't use my education in the kind of work I do now as so many people have told me over the years. Our decision to have children young is more important than any kind of respect or money we could have earned with another kind of job. Besides, I believe that having fun at what you do and being valued for who you are, is what matters most in a job.

I wanted to tell you about the lecture I went to on Friday, but instead I wrote all this. I also wanted to ask you whether you too have the feeling sometimes that you're getting less intelligent as you're getting older/since you've had children. Any ideas on that are very welcome, but I'm just too tired to think anymore right now ;)) This will be continued, though...

The photos are from today. We've enjoyed the warmest and loveliest April Sunday possible!

Almost ready to go

Tomorrow we'll be off to my parents to get the children settled at their temporary home and then early Wednesday morning we'll be on our way to lovely England!

We're *almost* ready to go...

That is except for the packing (for four people).

And cleaning (the neighbours will pick up our mail, so I can't leave the house a mess!) 

And finishing birthday presents that should have been finished 2,5 months ago.

And you know, shopping, washing, ironing, last-minute paperwork etc, etc.

Meanwhile we're enjoying the children just a little extra since we won't be seeing them the rest of the week.

And we're soaking up as much sun as possible. We 've had dinner outside two nights in a row! This was yesterday's lasagna:

I'm really looking forward to go. We've got a packed schedule full of fun things. On Friday I'm going to meet Monica :))

And I'll be confiscating kindly asking permission to use my sister's laptop, so I'll still be able to blog :)

Big girl, small shoes

Amber has achieved something that took many months (years?), tears and a whole lot of courage. For that she deserved a reward...

Tiny shoes that are impossible to walk on! She was like Cinderella's step-sister trying to wriggle into these, but you should see how happy she looks when she has them on :))

Now what was the big project that we finally managed to tackle? She now sleeps without a nappy (diaper for you Americans) and that's a BIG deal! It's been a long road for her, but apparently the time was right now. It's been more of a mental struggle than a physical one; she was just scared to go to sleep without a nappy.

However, on Monday morning -after another dry night- she earned her final sticker and that was that.

We're so proud of you, little big girl!!

Simon fell out of the tree... does he care? No way!

And how do you like my new sunglasses? These were the only remotely normal ones that I could find!! Michel now calls me Queen Bee Bling Bling. Well, this will be the summer of the bee then :)

Labels: children, garden, us

A bright day

This was today: And this was last week: Nothing changes like the weather, right?! When I came home from work, I received this wonderfully sweet present from Amy. Amber complained: 'Oh no, not ANOTHER package for mum!' Such a lovely Valentines gift, thank you so much Amy!! You and your stash are just the best! And I can assure you that the fabric will be put to good use. Like the other fabrics you sent me: I made this little princess tote for Amber last week. It really was a bright day today, filled with sunshine and signs of spring approaching. I just had to take some garden photos...what will the garden look like in a couple of months time?! This tree was filled with ladybirds. A little get-together to discuss their plans for the summer (we did just that today and will hopefully be going to France in August)?!

Labels: family, garden, mail, sewing, us