PICTURES FROM V-DAY

the menu

the chef hard at work

the waiters

my little sweetheart!

VALENTINE'S DAY

mommy's little helper!

licking there spoons and enjoying every minute.

we do not ever make a big deal about valentine's day. usually we get a little treat for the kids and have a nice dinner. this year was completely unexpected. first of all me and the girls made our favorite treat. CUPCAKES! the girls love baking with me and they especially love licking the spoons afterwards. they got really creative this year with decorating the cupcakes. we used hot pink icing and they got to sprinkle each cupcake. 

later in the day rob and nico came home with a beautiful vase of tulips (yellow and red).  they also announced that i would not be making dinner that evening. me and the girls were to dress up and get ready for dinner while rob and the boys decorated the dining room like a restaurant and served us girls a fabulous dinner. i got to sit down with two beautiful little girls and watch them act like little ladies. nico and jakob were so cute waiting on us and taking our orders. jakob would come to me every 5 minutes asking me what i want and then giving me a great big kiss once i told him. we were later served our steak, potatoes and fresh garden veggies. the cutest part was annelies' prayer to bless the food where she said..."heavenly father, please bless the food to make us strong, grateful for this beautiful restaurant and help us to always be a princess! amen."  the whole night was so cute and even included a lovely dance number from the boys. for dessert we were served a tray of cheesecake that eventually got dropped on the floor by nico who was trying so hard to balance it like a true waiter. it was a wonderful night and rob is so sweet to put something so special together for us girls. i know it will be something that his daughters and me will always remember. i think the boys enjoyed it just as much!

SOFIA IN GYMNASTICS

obviously not happy about gymnastics

sofia is begging to get out 

and ollie really wants to get in

so rob and i decided that sofia would be PERFECT for gymnastics. she has the perfect little body and lots of energy and loves to tumble and bounce around. lucky for us there is the gwinnett gymnastics center right around the corner from us. i immediately signed her up and she had her first class this past tuesday. i did not take into account her huge fear of being left, so needless to say she SCREAMED the entire 45 minutes of class. the teacher assured me that she would warm up eventually. i hope she is right!

DATE NIGHT

me shooting rob's gun

mandy's turn

rob and joe checking out our shooting abilities

rob and i met up with friends of ours to go out last friday night. we had a good time. the boys took us to the shooting range and let us girls have a try at shooting rob's gun. i was not happy with that gun. it was too heavy and the kick back was too strong not to mention the amo would often come back and hit me and mandy in the head and leave gun powder all over us. i think the next time i shoot, rob will have to get me a cute little gun that is more my size. did i mention i broke a nail!! it was a fun night and after all the shooting, we ate at a yummy brazilian restaraunt and then finished the night with brusters ice cream (YUM!!) and lots of fun stories from Joe. 

DINNER WITH FRIENDS

sofia's strip tease

angie, brooklyn, annelies, baby noah, alicia, sofia and me

all the kids

about a week ago i got to enjoy a girls night out with some friends of mine that i have known since KINDERGARTEN! we had so much fun eating, laughing, watching our kids play together (like we used to), and eat some more. in the middle of dinner sofia decided it would be fun to get undressed. the girl does not like to wear clothes. it was a great dinner and i love hanging out with my girls angie and alicia. i am so sad that alicia lives so far away and angie will be moving soon. who will cut my hair? 

POOR OLLIE

For the past couple of days Oliver has had this sad little limp in his left leg. i immediately called the doctor to make an appointment and luckily i got him in right away. His symptoms included a cough and runny nose and sneezing and of course his sad little limp. the doctor quickly ordered an x-ray and LOTS of blood work. apparently the cold and limping can coincide and the limp could be an infection from the cold. who knew?!! anyways..... the x-ray was a big fight. Ollie is so strong and held his own against 2 adults quite well. As for the blood work, that took three adults and a cute little sofia sitting on the side playing with stickers. she is so good.

It took two attempts to collect 4 viles of blood. the first attempt, oliver wiggled his way out of the 6' 5"  large mans arms as well as pulling the needle out of his own arm resulting in blood everywhere!!!! the man had to immediately go wash up and wait for ollie to calm down before they could try again. about 15 minutes later and a lot of tears later they tried once again and after poking both of his little arms to find a new vein, they finally got it. it took myself and another nurse to hold him down and the man to draw the blood. we all felt very exhausted and relieved that it was done and i know Oliver was ready to go home. the man drawing the blood said that in his 13 years of drawing blood, he has never had a baby be so difficult. oh- how proud am i?!!

Fortunately the results to all the blood work were negative (which is good) and his x-ray did not show any fractures or cracks of any kind. so now we just have to wait and see if maybe something else shows up on the blood work or if his little limp will go away on his own. poor little ollie. needless to say he is now resting quietly in his bed, happy to be home!!

NOTHING IN PARTICULAR (month review)

well it has been another month at the boot house and it has been nothing but excitement! i discovered that sofia now knows how to climb up our pantry shelves to get her most desired snacks. oh- this little girl is soooooo sneaky!!! i also discovered that she and annelies snuck up the whole kilo bag of winegums (a dutch snack) to the playroom  and finished off the bag. needless to say they were both complaining of stomach aches the rest of the night.

 

in other news, we got more trees cut down which translates to lots of huge piles of wood chips. the kids have enjoyed using there imagination and acting out scenes from there favorite movies or just playing and running or rolling around. 

the funniest thing by far was oliver recognizing that sofia was being naughty. he immediately went to my open dish washer, located the wooden spoon and chased sofia through the house to "spank her bum with the wooden spoon!"

annelies and i found this to be absolutely hysterical, but sofia did not find the humor in it.

annelies is quite the ballerina and loves to show it off every year at her schools circus performance. she was so graceful as she walked across the balance beam, jumped through the ring of fire and walked across the tight rope. 

well nico had a very fun season in basketball and tried very hard to impress his coach. this only lead to disappointment when his coach did not play him very much in there last tournament game that they ended up losing. nico was crushed and upset that he did not get to play much, but i think it was harder for me to see him so upset. oh the life lessons you must let your children learn. it is so hard to just stand by and watch them "suffer" through the many life lessons we all had to learn. luckily he woke up the next morning and had put the past behind him. it has been a fun month full of lots of excitement and i can only imagine what february will bring!!