KissKus

A Christmas wonderland

The weather has been very obliging this year and has provided us with a beautiful winter wonderland. Just in time for Christmas. Everything looks gorgeous!

Today the four of us spent a lovely quiet day at home. Michel took the kids out for a refreshing walk, while I stayed at home sewing. I managed to sew up four Christmas presents and I'll be finishing three more tonight. I never thought I'd be able to achieve so much last minute... I suppose it's a handmade Christmas for me after all!

Tomorrow morning I have to go into work for a couple of hours and after that we'll start the Christmas festivities at my parents' house. I'm looking forward to it.

I hope you'll all be able to enjoy the next couple of days, wherever you are and whatever way you choose to celebrate. Happy Christmas!

Ready or not, here it comes

Well, the helicopter has landed and the car is parked... what more could you wish for in a Christmas stable?

I still have a to do-list as long as my arm, but I'm so relieved to have finished my main project: a dress for Amber. Tomorrow she is going to sing Christmas carols in church with her school and I had promised to make her a new dress. It is finished! In time! It was a bit of a bumpy road though... as soon as I'm able to take some photos I'll post them.

It's been absolutely freezing here these past days. Michel and I tried to capture the magic of ice-forming, but unfortunately our camera wasn't really up for it. All those ice-y little "roots" are truly stunning though!

My sister will be arriving from England tomorrow. I'm looking forward to spending Christmas with my family. We'll be hopping around the country visiting everyone.
Hopefully, I'll be able to tick off a few more projects of my to do-list before then!

Home again

We're back from a wonderful three day break.
We're all relaxed, but definitely not rested... there wasn't a lot of time to sleep in between all the fun we had!
To prepare myself for "normal" life again I think I'm going to have a nice cup of tea and an early night!

Off to see the neighbours

Today we're off to visit our nextdoor neighbours.
The ones that live to the right of us. The right of our country that is.

We're off for a long weekend to Germany with family.
We'll be celebrating Sinterklaas, we'll go to a Christmas market and we'll undoubtedly enjoy the good food and drinks of Germany.
I'm really looking forward to it. I think I deserve a break after a whole month of blogging, don't you?!

Amber made a list of what clothes to pack... she did it all by herself; the mistakes are just delicious!

I blame someone else

So I had to work today.
All day.
When I left it was still dark and when I came home it was dark again.
I knew I wouldn't be able to take photos for my blog today.
And therefore I asked my darling husband to provide me with a photo today.
A simple enough task, right?!
Well, here comes the photo:

It's not my fault, I'm telling you!!

Guestblogger

To lift the pressure a bit, the usual quiet Michel has something to say to Mirre's fans.

It's great to see Mirre is doing so swell with the blogging, selling and mothering. But this NaBloPoMo is pressing hard on her.

Nevertheless I find it every time worth reading, and mostly I review some of it like a foto album.

Except for the fact this month I've had to read what happened instead of being told everything, I'm very proud of my 'busy bee'.

 

With my new job I have the luck I'm every weekend off. Last saturday Mirre had to work and I took the opportunity to take the children to Harderwijk , my birth place, to watch the traditional Sinterklaas arriving. Brad (my soon-to-be-brother-in-law) was going with us and it was his first encounter with the feast.

 

On the way to the harbour I saw the best windowstil I ever saw. It was a bit Jugendstil, like the bookshop I worked in until recently, but brand new. A nice surprise, and Sinterklaas had not yet even begun! Worth a picture and some lingering from my side (which earned much grumping from the rest). We were just in time to see Sint's ship mooring.

 

We went to the marketsquare to wait for Sinterklaas to come. Luckily a hot chocolate was easily purchased to fight the cold we were standing in. After many minutes (hours for the children) waiting, Sinterklaas finally came AND I MISSED HIM! I don't know how it happened, I just did. I'm glad my sister had the camera (but she could also have nudged me when he passed at the moment she pressed the button).

 

It was nice going out all fatherly with the children. Especially because we went by train, for Mirre took the car to work.

Next saturday Sint is coming to our little town, the day our daughter is swimming for her diploma. Busy day all over again!

Light a fire

We celebrated Michel's birthday (again) today.
One of the presents he got was a garden stove from my parents.

My Mum had even collected two bags of pieces of wood to start with.
It wasn't long before the first group of men went outside to lit a fire. Soon followed by more men.

The two bags of wood were used up quickly and they started looking around for more things to burn. Branches, leaves, table legs... anything would do.
There was lots of smoke, but they had a ball.
Except this little man...

He thought he wasn't allowed to go outside. But of course he was, as long as he wasn't getting too close to the fire because of his synthetic outfit.
After that he was his usual cheery self again.

Tomorrow: the reason for that outfit.

We're having a...

So on Monday we had our scan.
With the other two we never had such an extensive scan, but since last year everyone is allowed to have one at 20 weeks.

Say hello

Although I do think that it takes away quite a bit of romance and mystery surrounding birth, it was amazing to look at our baby so closely.
Everything seemed the way it was supposed to be, which was very nice to hear. We counted 2x5 toes and fingers.

It turned out that the placenta is placed as a sort of buffer between the baby and my belly, which explains why I don't feel it so well occasionally. Good to know.

I know the photos aren't great, but you can actually see a real proper face there. Hello little one!

Oh, did you want to know what we're having?!
We're not finding out ;))

A success

Yesterday's surprise worked out perfectly.

Michel's sister & boyfriend were already at our house when we came home from the scan, but they'd hid upstairs. She then phoned Michel to congratulate him with his birthday, of course Michel was under the impression she phoned from Australia. However, at the end of their conversation they came walking down the stairs. Michel couldn't believe his eyes! He was so surprised, he truly hadn't noticed any of our secrecy.
We had drinks and dinner at our house, more family came... it was a great birthday!

Today I'm blessed with an impressive headache, so I'm just going to relax a little before going to bed and then hopefully I'll feel better in the morning.

All was well with the scan, by the way. I'll write about that tomorrow!

Surprise birthday boy!

I'm writing this post in advance, because I'm sure that I won't have any time for it tomorrow.
I'll explain why..
It's Michel's 31st birthday today... happy birthday baby!

Michel believes that apart from our ultrasound-appointment nothing exciting is going to happen and secretly he's a little cranky about it. He doesn't know that we've got a big surprise planned for him today :)

This afternoon his sister and her boyfriend fiance will unexpectedly show up on our doorstep. He thinks they won't be arriving until Thursday! We haven't seen them for two years since they live in Australia. He doesn't suspect anything... I can't wait for it :))

It's so difficult to keep my mouth shut about it... just one more night!