KissKus

Approaching

My sister had these splashes of Spring flowers on her desk in her lovely new apartment. Seriously delicious.

Pretty view.

Another pretty view.

PS My baby sister turned 28... WHAT?!?!

Winter in Holland

It's been winter here in Holland for a few weeks now. It has snowed, there is ice and it's COLD.

Of course, the children love it. Me not so much, although I do enjoy the clear, bright skies.

Today we went to the windmill in Weesp to buy wholemeal in bulk. Yes, I'm serious about my bread making! And how cool to get my ingredients from the mill.

While we were there the children wanted to have some fun on the ice. I don't believe I've ever seen that river completely frozen over. It really was quite special.

Back home to warm up with tea and Michel's freshly baked sticky walnut tart, yum!

The winter garden

This is such a strange winter. So autumn like... but with a few hints of spring already as well.

It's difficult to imagine that we may still have cold weather ahead of us. I'm ready for spring, but then again... aren't I always?

Happy weekend, everyone!

The tree

As promised photos of our happy little tree (insert Bob Ross).

Man, it's loud! But we all think it's fun (except for maybe Michel, but you can't please them all).

Some of the ornaments:

I made these angels years ago (found the link... october 2006!). The gingerbread man was a present to myself this year.

Bauble with personal message from Michel's sister & hubbie who live in Australia.

Mexican angel gifted to me by the owner of the bookshop I used to work (in..1997?). The felt object in the background was a crafty project of Amber and myself in... 2006.

The star on top was a present from my sister when Amber was born (2001).

Amber took this photo of the Dick Bruna nativity set.

The colourful lights were a thrifstore find... just so irresistibly WRONG ;)

Just like good old Bob!

 

Preparation

Tomorrow is the big, all important Sinterklaas feast. Presents are wrapped, just some poems still need to be written. How important is Sinterklaas for the children? Extremely important, probably the most exciting day of the year after their birthdays.

To prepare ourselves the children made the traditional pepernoten today. Pepernoten are small, round cookies with specific spices. It was great to see the three of them work so concentratedly, each in their own way.

Of course, they got to eat some after they were baked.

It was a nice homely day, just some family time like last Sunday.

And I got to crochet for a while... I'm making progress!

Sinterklaas

I wrote about Sinterklaas before. We are getting in the mood!

The heath

In our previous town we lived within walking distance of the heath. Now we live within walking distance of the woods, but somehow it doesn't feel the same (although I'm not complaining! And we still live within cycling distance of the heath...)

There is something so special about the heath. Even though this is Holland -where real nature is sparse and where you always hear some kind of traffic noise- the surroundings are fresh and calming. We have spent many happy moments on the heath. At first just the two of us, later with 1, 2 and 3 children.

Today was a lovely autumn day. The children are on school break, Michel took the day off. So on an oridinary monday we could just do whatever we fancied.

First a quick trip to the thrifstore, where we took kilos of stuff and bought nothing! We literally came away lighter... Then to a restaurant for drinks and sugary goodness. After that some running around on the heath. We spotted some beautiful toadstools.

Autumn at its best.

Thrifty Tuesday: fabric!

My trip to the thriftstore this morning started off a little disappointing. Downstairs: no cups, no plates, no trays, no tins.

Upstairs the fabric section. At first glance it wasn't much... but then! I spotted a lady with a suspiciously overflowing basket, so I checked the pile that she was going through and discovered that a seamstress had obviously cleared out her closets. I tried not to look at the other lady's basket, as she might have picked the best fabrics. Still, there was plenty left for greedy old me. I grabbed an armfull of stuff and then later made a selection. Trust me... I could have bought a lot more!

• The purple fabric is a flannel-like cotton. There must be about 5 metres! It cost 2,50.

• The mustard fabric is a knitted fabric. The colour isn't great, but it's nice quality and for 80 cents I just couldn't leave it there (there is at least 2 metres)

• A piece of Vintage Laura Ashley: 50 cents.

• A nice soft plaid fabric, perfect for lining trousers etc (70 cents)

• The shabby chic flowers, very Cath Kidston I think. It's a little synthetic with a bit of stretch, which I believe makes it the perfect material for a sweet skirt. If not for my girl, then I'm sure for someone else.

• Red ribbed fabric, 50 cents.

Did you think that this was all??

Think again :) I found a pile of vintage hankies!

I tried to be choosy.

I left some behind!

I think I will just sew them up into a small blanket.

And then... I passed the baby section. Remember: always check all corners of the thrifstore... treasures can be anywhere!

And indeed there was another treasure waiting for me... I love this piece of faux patchwork (80 cents).

It's a good thing I just cleared out my sewing room (don't tell my Mum about my new purchases!) ;) Now back to the sewing machine!

Over our head

I heard the sound of a hot air balloon while we were having dinner in the garden. When we spotted it we couldn't believe how low it was.... it was almost touching the tree tops and very clearly it couldn't get up again and was coming down quite rapidly. For a moment we feared that it was going to crash into the houses behind ours. It was a spectacular sight, but we were keeping our fingers crossed that all was going to end well. Like the rest of our street/town we followed the balloon and willed it to make it safely across the busy highway. Thankfully after hitting a few trees, it landed safely.

The garden in autumn

Although it's officially autumn the garden still has lots of beauty to offer.

Some photos of what I found while I was soaking up the sun yesterday: