keeping busy

As you can see, I have been keeping busy. It has been a calm weekend. The boys got their next bands in jiu jitsu last friday and on saturday son #1 got his diploma A in swimming and son #2 got a sticker to go to the next swimming class, so they did well and can enjoy their autumn break.

This is us

So here are a few results of the pics we had taken by Marline. She is the talent behind Rokki. I really like this picture of the boys.

We offcourse also had pics taken of all of us, with this as a result. I think they are great, the spontaneous pictures.

Early christmas preparations

Yesterday I vivisted a friend of mine that was already making great progress in her christmas crafting. She already made a ton of wonderful decorations and it looked like she was planning on making much more.
So that made me think of our christmas, since this year the christams holiday starts at the 24th, we will have to do the preparations up front since we are all working until the last day...
So I asked my cousin to join us, and my parents, offcourse our au pair, so it will be a fun group.
I talked to my cousin what we would prepare and neither of us could make a suggestion, I orderd this book, I ordered it in dutch, since that will be easier on the recepices, I think.

When I occasionally watch her show, it all lokks so wonderful, so hopefully the book is a good substitute.

Autumn walk

We had a walk this morning in the forest in Halle. And as real boys they discovered a small bridge where they were looking for all sorts of stuff in the water...
Afterwards we wanted to get some wafels with cream. We have a special address for suchs treats, but it turned out that they were still selling icecream. Next week they switch over to wafels and pancakes for winter. SO the boys had an icecream... as if it is not cold enough outside, but OK...

Afterwards, we visited the ladies that are at the source of the icecream. As you can see, she is as curious as son #3.

The farm makes their own products, icecream, butter, cream, yoghurt, etc. Ad you are welcome to visit the cows and their calves in the stables.

Elephant

So I promised my SIL to make her an elephant on wheels. I followed the instructions on the crochet pattern that I bought, but this is the result...
He is not FAT enough, never guessed I would say that, but he is just not fat enough. The head is OK, I like the shape, but the legs and the body are too slim for an elephant. Anyone any ideas?

Help needed... Star Wars Cookie cutters

Oh, aren´t these fantastic? I just love them and I bet my boys would love them to. Too bad that none of the Williams Sonoma items get sold here and that you can´t buy them from their website, if you live outside the US.

If anybody is willing to help me obtain these cookiecutters, I would be very grateful. We would work something out, I am sure.

Weekend

What a weekend, the weather was better than in summer, so we went to the beach. It was warm and sunny and the kids had a great time.
And no, my kids normally don´t walk in matching clothing, but we had a photoshoot in the mroning so that is why... People at the beach were thinking, what a family, all matchin clothes, but they don´t know that it was the second or third set, since they even managed to get dirty just before and during the shoot...

I could jet used to weekend like this one.

New swap

I joined the Scrappy Hoop swap organised by Heather and Kerri. For details, check out Heather´s site. It look slike great fun. I have swapped before, individually and with swap bot, but this swap looks like great fun. Can´t wait to get my partner.

Martial arts festival

My cousin is head of a Pentjak Silat school in Maastricht called Panca Sila. Because they celebrated their 15th anniversary, they organised a Martial Arts festival. The picture above is my cousin in action with one of his students.

Since our boys also practice a martial art, we went to watch all the demo´s, he did very well and we are all proud of him for accomplishing all of this. Keep up the good work Henry.