Christmas 2011

This year may have been one of my favorite Christmas'. The kids are just the perfect ages where everything is magical, exciting & fun. It all started when our neighbor hung up his outdoor Christmas lights a few days after Thanksgiving. That night, after Marieke was in her PJs and all ready for bed, I took her outside to see the lights. I wish I would have taken a picture of her face. Her eyes were so wide & her mouth made the quintessential "O". She excitedly shrieked, pointed and laughed at each new thing she noticed. Throughout the season, we took LOTS of walks to see the lights at night.

It just seemed that every little thing we did was met with excitement & joy: hang up a little handtowel with Santa on it = Marieke talked about it for days. Put a Santa hat in the advent calendar for Lukas = jump up for joy.

I did get a sense that Lukas is beginning to enter that stage where magic starts to clash with intellect/maturity. This is the first year that we did "elf on a shelf". Someone in Lukas' class was talking to him about it, & I told him that our family had an elf too. I don't know the whole story that is suppose to accompany the elf, we just decided that it would appear each morning in a different spot causing different mischief. After the 2nd morning, Lukas asked me point blank if I moved the elf. I never want to lie outright so I did the usual "what do you think?", "it might be magic if you want to believe", etc. but he was persistent & kept asking me if I did it. Finally, I admitted that I had moved it that morning. About 10 minutes later (and 2 minutes before we have to leave for school) I find him crying in his room. He says "it isn't so fun if I know that you did it". Backpedal, backpedal...."well maybe I just moved it after the elf had already caused his mischief" or "maybe it was magic the other days" or "maybe...what I said I don't really remember. I don't think Lukas really remembers either. But it was enough to sway the balance back towards magic & enough that he could believe in the elf again. And smile again. whew!

We went to our usual tree farm & cut down our tree with some friends this year. We got a good tree, although Lukas pouted a bit since we didn't go with his choice. Marieke just thought it was exciting to cut down the tree & put it on top of our car. The weather was so mild & beautiful that we brought a picnic lunch to share afterwards.

And of course, we made loads & loads of cookies again this year......

Sprinkling magic reindeer food out on Christmas Eve

Lukas wrote his wishlist/letter to Santa:

1) tour of Santa's workshop

2) puppy

3) nutcracker

Luckily, Santa was able to deliver one of the things on his list (not the puppy!)

Marieke's list was much easier:

1) soft puppy stuffed animal

2) hard dinosaur toy
But the big hits for presents this year were stilts that Grandpa made for Lukas, a wooden kitchen that Grandpa made for Marieke, a $1 panda hat that Marieke got from Tanta Cora, and a new Canon DSLR for me!

Lukas all excited as he guesses this is the nutcracker he requested

One of Marieke's favorite presents

Lukas masters his stilts

We're officially a California family now!

We recently acquired a 1965 convertible MG. It is the most impractical car for our family: unreliable, sucks up a lot of Rob's wkd time to fix up, requires continuous $ for parts, takes up precious space in our already overcrowded garage, no back seat and ancient front seat seatbelts.......

But it is FUN!!!

Halloween 2011

Lukas decorated all of the little pumpkins/gourds from our garden

Halloween is always one of my favorite holidays, but seemed to be extra fun this year. Nothing extra special happened, but just lots of good times at the pumpkin patches, decorating, trick-or-treating, etc. Although I wasn't sure how Marieke was going to do on actual Halloween night. She LOVES LOVES LOVES candy, but was also very scared with all of the decorations. There was one house in our neighborhood that had particularly scary decorations that we have to walk by/drive by on our way to school everyday. Everyday, as we'd head out she'd ask "Scary house?" and I'd have to say yes we are going past the scary house. She'd then cover her eyes until the house was no longer in sight. I thought she might freak out when we went trick-or-treating and all the kids were out in costume.

Going past the "scary house"

She was very excited about her costume - Oompa-Loompa - mostly because the costume involved her holding a lolipop. Lukas was a vampire, Rob a wizard, and me - who swore she'd plan ahead for a costume this year - failed to do so again - so haphazardly put together a "spider/witch/woman" costume in the last minute.

On Halloween day, Marieke suddenly got sick and puked 7 times from about noon to 5. Not wanting to miss our evening of trick-or-treating, we plowed ahead - putting Marieke in her costume and then covering it with an old t-shirt until we were ready to head out the door. I got to carry an extra bag with towels and wet wipes for the inevitable cleanup. We were able to cover a few blocks of our neighborhood. Marieke lost all fear and was totally into the candy. After about 45 minutes, I could sense all of Marieke's candy was about to come back up. I held out the towel for her - and forever I will have the image in my brain of a little green-haired munchkin looking at me with a sort of bewildered look in her eyes as multi-colored puke came out. Anyway.... Marieke and I headed back home to pass out candy while Rob & Lukas met up with friends to get more.

This year I finally pulled out The Coffin. I made The Coffin about 10 years ago when I was still single and taking a woodworking class (hmmm... and I wondered why I was still single?). The Coffin is huge & a pain to get out of the attic, but Lukas was very keen to set it up this year. I'm so glad we did. It was a perfect spot for Marieke to chill out and pass out candy while still being in the action.

Later, Lukas and friends had an awesome time hiding out in the coffin and scaring other and older! trick-or-treaters when they came to get candy.

1st Day of 1st Grade

First backpacking trip

At our favorite local thrift store, Rob found an awesome kids' Kelty hardframe backpack for only $7. We couldn't wait to try it out. As luck would have it, our Swiss friends who are living here for a year mentioned that they found hike-in backpacking sites in Palo Alto. I think it's funny that we were "filling them in" on things to do in CH and they are doing the same for us here. I guess as expats you scour and try to find all the best things to do in the short time you have. Anyway, even tho I was dying to go, I stayed home with Marieke and Rob got to head out with Lukas for his first true backpacking trip.

The 4 camping sites were a 2-mile trek in. Unfortunately, on the wkd they chose, it was well in the 90s. But Rob said that Lukas was a trooper! He carried all of his own personal items (sleeping bag, thermarest, clothes & chosen stuffed animal) and Rob schlepped the rest. I guess when they arrived at the sites, there was already a group of teenagers & counselors at one of the sites. They were surprised & impressed to see little Lukas coming up the hill with his full pack. I know Rob was proud. ;-)

Highlights of the trip for Lukas included picking out his own dehydrated meal at REI, and encountering a rattlesnake on their way back down from the camping site.

 

Father's Day

Our 3rd Annual Father's Day hike on Mt. Tam for our pancake breakfast. Once again - perfect weather, good friends, great little hikers and this time, no Pukey-Lukey on the drive up!

Mother's Day

Rob asked what I wanted for Mother's Day & I said half-joking/half-serious : to be on my own for the day. While I totally want some alone time, it didn't feel right to have it on Mother's Day. So instead, I got "me" time on Saturday: (finally) got my hair highlighted/cut & got to do a little shopping. On Mother's Day we had a great sluggish/lazy pajama morning followed by an outing to a local indoor water park, followed by a short little hike in a new nature preserve & a quick, easy hamburger/fries/milkshake dinner at a local diner. Perfect day.

Couple of Mother's Day pics: Although I sometimes/often dream of enjoying a relaxing cup of coffee while leisurely making my way through the Sunday paper uninterrupted, deep down I know how much fun I'd be missing:

Trouble......

Marieke is keeping me busier than ever these days as she explores & tries to do everything that her big brother does. In just the past few weeks:

1) I found her eating catfood out of the catdish in the garage.

2) She swallowed a coin. Luckily just a small 1/2CHF coin which I found in her diaper a few days later.

3) She learned to climb out of her crib already (at 16 mos.) - UGH!

4) She found my secret stash of Swiss chocolate bars in my closet. She unwrapped one and was working her way through the whole thing.

but the clincher was when I found her up in a tree - seriously - in our backyard. (no photo of that one for obvious reasons!) Lukas is an expert tree-climber and had given her a hand to get up on a lower branch. Both her & Lukas had the biggest smiles on their faces! I had to explain to Lukas - after my heartrate was back to normal - that 16 mos. old babies should not be up in trees.

I feel like I'm watching & shadowing Marieke like a hawk every day & still she manages to get into trouble. (with Lukas' encouragement & training, of course!)

2 Gooberheads

I was worried that with 5 years between them, Lukas & Marieke wouldn't play that much together. Luckily I had nothing to worry about......

Kauai

Spent a wonderful 9 days in Kauai with the extended family. We rented a HUGE old plantation right on the beach with enough bedrooms for us all to stay together. Lukas had the best time playing with his cousins, Marieke loved the sand & water & we had an great, relaxing (as much as you can relax with little kids) time. Not too many photos, unfortunately. Just seemed like I was always too sandy, greasy, sticky or lazy to take many pics. I guess that's a sign of a good vacation.


Our house had huge verandas where we spent most of our time when we weren't at the beach.


The kids spent a good amount of time trying to catch fish & other sea creatures in the tidepools.


Our property had lots of coconut trees & the Dads took turns cracking them open for the kids.

One of our excursions was a tubing trip down some old plantation viaducts. About 75% of the time we were in tunnels. I thought that the kids would be a little freaked out, but they loved it.





While we were tubing, Grandpa & Grootmoe were babysitting the little ones.





Our yard in front of the beach.


Sunset on our last night.

Kiwi Picking

The crew heads out to the fields.

We've done strawberry picking, cherry picking, apple picking, etc. So when I read about a farm nearby that offers kiwi-picking - we had to try it. First off, I was intrigued that kiwis grow in northern CA and that the kiwi season is in December. I always assumed that they were a tropical fruit. We headed out on a beautiful sunny day to meet up with some friends & check it out.

The pros:

• Kiwis grow on low overhead vines so you don't have to stoop, but even the kids could reach & pick
• Price was great - $1.50/lb
• Organic
• Beautiful coastside location

The cons:

• Kiwis ripen after you pick them. So we were picking hard, sour kiwis. No snacking while picking - a major con for me!

Somewhat offsetting pro:

Kiwis can be stored in the fridge for months. They only ripen (in about 4 days time) when placed on the counter. So you don't have to worry about "overpicking" and have a constant supply of kiwis if you want.

I'm finally getting around to writing this post about 4 months later - and yes - we still have kiwis in our fridge. I'm doubtful that they'll last another 2 months - but I think we'll be able to eat them all by then anyway.

We'll definitely head out again next year!

Lukas demonstrates the easy pickin'

Even Marieke gets in on the act (and didn't seem to mind sucking on sour kiwis).

Lukas loses his first tooth

Lukas lost his first tooth. He lost it at school which was an added bonus because he got to go the principal's office where he got a little tooth shaped holder on a string to carry it around the rest of the day. Rob & I were dorks & were seriously up late that night debating about what the tooth fairy would do. Lukas did NOT want the tooth fairy to take his tooth away & even wrote a note for her with those instructions. We were also worried that, since he lost his tooth at school, everyone would ask & compare what the tooth fairy brought him. (some kids here get $5, $10 & even, yes $20 for a tooth - it is the expensive Bay Area, afterall ;-) In the end, the tooth fairy did take his tooth, but Lukas was OK with that since he got a whopping $3. We've already told him not to expect that much for each tooth - we think the tooth fairy only gives that much for the special first lost tooth.