This morning the ski classes for the kids started, so it was a bit of a hectic morning to get 5 kids under 8 ready for a fun filled day of skiing and sleding. But we managed so here are some pictures of our day.
Yesterday night the kids spent some time outside playing with kids fireworks.
DH tried to light one of those Thai Hot air things, but it didn´t go up, so we extinghuised it with snow.
And as you can see, we had a great time celebrating the New Year.
When we arrived at the Gerlospass we needed to put our snowchains on the car. Guess who of the tree persons is an engineer?
Finally a lot of snow... This is in front of the chalet. Wow, the snow is great. The kids are loving it.
This morning we left for Augsburg, Germany, our stop before driving to Austria. Since tomorrow is the last day of the year we wanted to arrive on time in our chalet, so we decided to leave today.
This and worse was the rest of the trip... But we arrived safely in Augsburg, we had a bite to eat in an old brewery and now we are back at the hotel.
Son #1 needed to make a homemade present for a secret santa party in his class. So he checked out the different patterns and his choice were these christmas lights. He crocheted the string and I made the lamps. I hope his secret santa bussy likes the lights. If you like the pattern, it is a freebie from ravelry: you can get it here.
This morning a van from the florist stopped at our place and a guy comes out with a big bouquet of flowers... For me???
Yesterday evening when I wanted to go home after school, I was hit by a car.
The boyfriend of our au pair visited her this weekend and we thought we would visit an original Christmas market. The one in Valkenburg (there are actually two) are held in the two local man-maded caves.
The temperature inside is always 12 degrees Celsius, so quite nice. And it is a lovely market to visit. One word of advice, come early! As we left the caves, there were no more people allowed to enter until people left, so the amount of people in the caves is regulated. So outside were huge lines with waiting people...
In the above pic you can see that people used to make sculptures in the caves... In the older parts, you can see wonderful sculptures and paintings, you can even find fossils.
Our christmas tree arrived last week but we waited with the decoration until sunday, because we celebrated Sinterklaas on Saturday.
Since the weather was poor yeaterday, a lot of wind and rain, and the kids were indoors all day, we thought it would be a good idea to take them to the beach. We also took our nephew with us since he stayed with us last night so his parents could have a quite night.
Yesterday evening, Sinterklaas paid our family a visit. Alle our cousins, nieces and nephews were present and we had a great time.
Tonight I made some chilly jam to go with the christmas turkey.
The recepy comes for the Nigella Christmas cook book and is sooooooo yummy. Just love it with turkey or chicken.
Yesterday Sinterklaas visited DH´s work. All the kids gathered at the cantine and sang Sinterklaas songs and ate of all the goodies that were lying there, speculaas, pepernoten, banketstaaf, etc.
After Sinterklaas had met every child in person and spoke to them, they all got their presents and opened them all together. Great to see all the kids opening their presents at the same time.
As you can see, I am still chrocheting hexagons for my pink and blue African flower afghan. But since it is for myself, it doesn´t matter that it takes this long... LOL
Last week I have been crocheting some viking hats for DH and the boys. We will all go on ski holiday with a viking hat... I bought the pattern from Mamachee on etsy. They look grat, I also made another one is August, so that will be mine and the boys will have a darker grey one. So now that the hats are finsihed I have to make four pairs of horns...
As you remember, Jules stayed with us last week. I didn´t show a picture of Jules new outfit and his new blanket. I made him a uniform out of an old uniform form the boys. And offcourse a scarf and hat as it is getting colder.
I also made some crochet mustaches for the boys. I found the pattern on the blog of Easy makes me Happy. Great tutorial and it the boys love them.
Yesterday we had diner at De Troubadour in Antwerp. If you ever are in Antwerp and you manage to get reservations, go there. The food and services is great and we have never been dissapointed by them. It got pretty late, so this morning we picked up the boys and now we are having a lazy day indoors.
Since son #3 is a big fan of Thomas the engine, I booked tickets to go to the musical when I saw they were coming to Holland. For some reason they don´t perform in Belgium.
The loved the musical and especially son #3 was mesmerised by the whole show, he bsolutely loved it and at the end they had the opportunity to meet the actors.
In the car they were still singing the songs...
Today we went to the beach as the weather here is even better than last summer. It is still warm and you don´t need a jacket on the beach... and this in November !
Jules joined us and he was very naughty because he swam in the sea and now his clothes are all wet... Too bad we were to late to take a picture of Jules swimming in the sea.
