Tulips ARE Flowers

Saturday morning Andy had a conversation with Rachel explaining to her that tulips are flowers. She simply thinks tulips are tulips and flowers are flowers. She doesn't quite understand the whole concept of grouping, but she'll get there. When we were saying family prayers on Saturday night Andy was thanking Heavenly Father for the flowers and Rachel quickly corrected him in the middle of his prayer and told him to say tulips. Silly girl!

So, after the parade on Saturday night we drove through quite a bit of countryside in search of some tulip fields. After driving around for about an hour (traffic was horrible) we finally settled on a field and got out to take some pictures. Of course by that time Audrey was enjoying a nice little nap, so we first just took some pictures of the flowers...

And then of course Rachel...Rachel loved walking down the rows, which she called "roads". The yellow tulips were almost as tall as her. So pretty!Rachel even took some pictures of her daddy... And I snapped a picture of the two of them together...And then we woke Audrey up...We attempted to take some family pictures with the tripod. Audrey was more interested in the flowers, the dirt, or the people walking by. And of course Rachel had to give us a big cheesy smile on our last attempt...We enjoy seeing the tulips every year. We live in such a beautiful world and are thankful for all the beautiful sites that we get to enjoy.

Flower Parade

Every year the Dutch have a Flower Parade. The parade route is roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles). The parade goes through various cities and it takes about 12 hours. On Saturday we were able to catch the parade around 5 pm. When we first got there I was a bit disappointed. There were about 20 advertising cars and I was worried that the whole parade was going to be like the picture below, but luckily it improved. Just like in the U.S. the parade has to get paid for somehow, so there was plenty of advertising. We didn't stay for the whole parade, but definitely enjoyed the 30 minutes that we spent watching the floats go by. This year's theme was "Famous Books".

Imagine our surprise as we heard the familiar tune of "The Star Spangled Banner". There was even a U.S. themed float. Just in case you are wondering what Dutch singers sound like, here's a little clip:

My wish list (for today)...

Just in case any of you are at a loss as to what to get me for my birthday! :)

• going into work on Saturdays outlawed
• a driveway
• auto mechanics who can actually make repairs
• bags provided free of charge at the grocery store
• baggers to bag my groceries
• carts that don't require a deposit to use
• return cart areas in the parking lot
• carts that can actually fit a baby car seat and groceries in them
• courteous grocery stockers or better yet grocery stores that stock when they are closed
• items advertised to actually be in stock (I mean if they're always stocking, why don't they have the stuff advertised?)
• carts that one can easily steer when loaded with groceries
• a chocolate pill so I won't have to eat chocolate to calm my nerves after such a morning

Okay, I know what would solve all my frustrations. I need my own personal shopper. Yes, that would be wonderful! Then these stressful Saturday mornings wouldn't occur any more. I hope you all know I'm smiling as I type this. It is a beautiful day and now that I've vented, I'm going to enjoy it! Thank heavens for my little angels - Audrey and Rachel - they were wonderful as I coped with my frustrating morning. :)

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'

Audrey has become quite the roller. She has discovered our couches. She loves to roll over to the edge and feel the underside of them. This is exactly how I found her yesterday afternoon: Earlier this week she surprised me by rolling 4 times quite quickly. She rolled herself off the quilt and on to Rachel's padded numbers. Of course I didn't catch that one on video. Her play keys seemed to be the trick to really get her to roll. So, on Wednesday I tried to recreate it and she did a pretty good job. I don't know what it is about her play keys, but they make her roll.

Rachel Randomness

Preface: Last year Rachel's Uncle Nate (affectionately called Nate-dog by Rachel) was here for her birthday. Rachel loves to watch videos of herself on the computer and she did so yesterday. She must have seen her birthday video from last year. Rachel loves to stall going to sleep. As you are putting her to sleep she'll come up with anything to chat with you about, so here's what occurred last night.

Rachel (sits up suddenly in her bed): Nate-dog is going to come for my birthday.

Me: No Rachel, he's not going to be able to come this year.

Rachel: Oh. (She thinks for a few seconds.) Well, that's okay because Ashley can come over for my birthday.

Thank heavens Ashley is around to make up for Nate-dog! :) Rachel is quite excited for her birthday this year. She has been talking about it nonstop. She's also very curious when everyone else's birthdays are as well. Her third birthday should be a fun one!

We hope you feel loved Nate! I'm sure Audrey would request something similar if she could talk. :)

A Miraculous Afternoon

Audrey took a 2-hour nap this afternoon! She hasn't had a 2-hour nap in months. It was quite miraculous and a wonderful gift to me. Rachel was asleep for 1 1/2 hours of Audrey's 2-hour nap. So, I got a bit of a nap myself, finished one book, and started another book. With the hours Andy has been working recently it was heavenly to have 1 1/2 hours to myself this afternoon. Now we'll see if Audrey will take another 2-hour nap tomorrow. I never know with her! :)

What did you say???

Rachel is driving us crazy! :) She is constantly asking, "What did you say?". She does it quite often when Andy and I are carrying on a conversation and she wants in. A few weeks ago she starting the whole "why" thing, but that has already worn off. Now, she's on to "what did you say?". The tone of voice she uses makes it all that more hilarious and annoying at the same time. Who knows what she'll come up with next....

Solids

On Friday I made the decision to start Audrey on solids. I know she can go longer than 3-4 hours at night, so we're hoping the rice cereal will help her sleep longer. We shall see... Audrey really likes rice cereal. Rachel never liked it and so we just went straight to fruits and veggies with her. But the past three days have gone well with Audrey. This morning Rachel decided she needed in on the action and so she was helping out.

Happy Baby

It was so nice to hear Audrey's cooing over the baby monitor this morning. And then when I went to get her, this is what I found:She is definitely starting to explore her crib and blankets a lot more. This soft, white blanket is one of her favorites. Technically her little head should be laying on the yellow sheet saver, but she's obviously been wiggling around. Audrey's gotten into a new routine lately. She's usually asleep by 9, then wakes up sometime between 12-1 to eat, then gets up again around 5:30-6:30 to eat again, and then finally wakes up for the day around 8:30-9:00. Even though I wish she would go a longer stretch she's such a good baby in the middle of the night. She's up for 15-20 minutes and then goes back down without any qualms. It's always nice to have a baby wake up happy! :)

Sidewalk Art

This morning we went outside and Rachel enjoyed her sidewalk chalk. Yes, she's wearing socks because she won't wear any shoes. Her feet have sores on them from her new white shoes she wore yesterday. And yes, she said she's drawing tweezers. Why, who knows? Audrey enjoyed hanging out in her bouncy chair while Rachel and I made designs on the sidewalk. Rachel has come a long way since last summer. Last summer we walked by some sidewalk chalk artwork and she was quick to say kids had been naughty to draw on the floor. But I guess she's become wiser and knows it's okay as long as you're using sidewalk chalk.

Easter Weekend

We had a fun Easter weekend. Rachel got into Easter a lot more this year, so it was fun to see her excitement. We had some friends over Saturday night to dye Easter eggs with us. The local grocery store actually had white eggs for sale specifically for Easter. So, Rachel had her first experience of dying Easter eggs.

She sure was proud of the finished products! Everything comes in tens here, so Rachel and her friend each dyed 10 Easter eggs. Andy helped her on a few of her eggs by using crayon to make some designs. Rachel really liked her "R" egg.

Audrey was quite the sleeper that night. She went 8 1/2 hours straight and then after that she slept another 3 1/2 hours. So, Audrey wasn't up Easter morning until 9 AM. Of course Rachel didn't sleep in that late, boy that would have been nice! So, just like Christmas, Rachel got to check everything out by herself. The girls each got swimsuits from the Easter bunny.

Here's Rachel checking out her stickers. She also got sidewalk chalk and a few chocolate treats. For breakfast we had some donuts that I found at the grocery store the day before. Rachel was pretty excited about the sprinkles, but she didn't enjoy it when her hands got all sticky. Silly girl!Here's Audrey once she decided to join the party. She woke up so happy Easter morning!Here's Audrey modeling her swimsuit and hat. Hopefully we'll have some nice beach days this summer!Rachel had fun all morning long with the Easter stuff. At one point she put on her swimsuit cover-up and Audrey's hat, got everything else gathered together, and headed for the door. Where was she planning on going? We don't know. She was just having fun! Here are some pictures of the girl's in their cute Easter dresses.

4 months old

Audrey is 4 months old today and boy is she fun to have around. She is so smiley and happy most of the time. :) She is roughly 13 pounds and 24 inches tall. Audrey has mastered playing with toys. She can be quite content as long as you keep handing her different toys. One day she even transferred a toy from one hand to the next. She also loves to play with her feet. She likes playing on the floor, but you usually have to be nearby. She can roll quite easily from her back to her tummy, but she gets quite frustrated trying to roll back to her back. She can do it, but it takes some effort. Within the past couple of days she has become a bit more content playing on her tummy. Audrey thinks Rachel is hilarious. Rachel is able to get Audrey laughing pretty good. It's so much fun to see them interact with one another. Audrey really likes being outside, so we are glad that the weather is finally warming up some. She is quite the cat napper. She usually takes 3-4 naps a day ranging from 30 minutes to an hour each. Some days Rachel gets more of a nap in with her one nap than Audrey gets with several naps. We have finally stopped swaddling her, but that hasn't changed anything. She still sleeps for the same amount of time, so we figured she was getting to old to swaddle and we might as well stop now before she gets too dependent on it. On a good night Audrey will give me 2 5-hour stretches of sleep. I'm missing the 8 hour stretches she used to give, but one night she'll surprise us. We definitely love Audrey to pieces and can't believe she's already 4 months old!

Elsenhove Children's Farm

It's a beautiful, spring day here in Holland. It's currently 72 degrees, the sun is shining, and we have all our windows open. We have learned that you have to take advantage of days like these. So, when some friends invited me to join them for an outing this morning we packed up and went. There's a children's farm nearby that has animals to pet and look at. It even has a decent playground. This was our first time there but we will definitely have to go again. As soon as we got there Rachel jumped up on this little lamb. Here's Little Miss Smiley! She stayed in her stroller the whole 2 hours we were there. She slept for a little while and also just enjoyed checking everything out. The goats really liked the diaper bag. I guess they could smell the snacks that were in there. This goat must have been pregnant. You can't really tell from this picture but she was literally bulging from both sides. I wasn't able to get a picture of Rachel petting the goats. Even though she enjoyed herself, I have to be right there petting along with her so it's tricky to get a picture.

Here's Rachel playing on the playground. She enjoyed this little hut, the teeter totter with her friend, the slide, the sandbox, and a Dutch spinning thing (kind of like a merry-go-round).

We are definitely glad our friends invited us to join them. It was a fun thing to do on such a beautiful day. Once Rachel gets up from her nap we'll have to go outside and enjoy the day some more! :)

Afsluitdijk Dike

We have decided that before we know it we will be headed home for good and there is still a lot of the Netherlands that we have yet to explore. So, on Saturday we decided to take a little drive and check out one of the dikes that Holland is known for. The Afsluitdijk Dike is 20 miles long and we drove from our end of it to the little town of Zurich. This particular dike damns off Zuidersee, a salt water inlet of the North Sea and turns it into the freshwater lake of the IJsselmeer. The Netherlands is known for reclaiming land and building dikes is one of the ways they have accomplished that. We stopped off at a monument that marks where the dike was closed when it was completed back in 1933. Here are the girls and I - it was a bit windy. We are on the lake IJsselmeer side of the dike.

We then walked above the motorway to the other side. Here's Rachel on the walkway above the motorway.

A picture of Andy and the girls on the other side of the motorway by the monument.

It was weird to be driving along and look at the GPS with water on either side of the road. The right side is were the dike is and the North Sea and the left side is were the lake is. This is a picture of the GPS as we were headed back home. After we had driven the length of the dike we drove through the little town of Zurich. We then came across a set of stairs that you could climb up to go to the other side of the dike. I stayed in the car with sleeping Audrey and Rachel and Andy ventured out.

Here's Rachel with the dike on the left and the North sea on the right.

Here are some pictures of the dike. It wasn't that clear of a day, but you're able to get an idea of what it looks like. It wasn't exactly what I expected, but I guess it works!

So, after living in the Netherlands for almost 18 months we can now say we've seen a dike. We are hopefully going to be better about quick little day trips like this in the future.

Our Little Growler

While we were on our trip Audrey randomly started growling. It's not like anyone growled at her or tried to teach her. I think she just did it once by accident and then decided she liked the way it felt on her vocal chords. So, here's our little growler:

Texas Adventures

We then spent the last two weeks of our vacation in Texas. We were able to enjoy some warm weather and see a lot of my family as well. The first week we were there we were able to spend time with Paul, Cristy, Aaron, Ashlyn, Jeff, Ken, and Jenny. The weather was absolutely perfect the first week and we enjoyed lots of outside time. We went on walks every day and played a ton outside. The second week we were there we spent some good quality time with Grandma and Grandpa. We got to enjoy some Texas downpours the second week, so we were indoors a bit more that week. Once again some firsts were experienced. Ice cream cones were often consumed, if not once, possibly twice a day. Aaron and Rachel became fast friends. He was so cute with her! :) Ashlyn and Rachel were friends on occasion. A lot of the time they would both want the same toy, but overall they did really well. We attempted to take some pictures of the kids in their Sunday best. Of course I was feeding Audrey and Rachel was being uncooperative! :) But the kids sure did look cute at church on Sunday. The kids also spent a lot of time being read to. If one of them picked out a book everyone else wanted to join in. We got lots of pictures of the kids on Ken's, Jeff's, or Grandpa's lap. Absolutely precious! Rachel really got into soccer while we were there. Here she is playing away and having fun. And here she is quenching her thirst! Rachel became quite addicted to soda while on this trip. First it started off with Sprite, then Dr. Pepper (caffeine free), and finally Root Beer. We had to get so we would limit her to one soda a day! Soda usually isn't an option in our house, so Rachel took full advantage of her grandparents having it readily available. We celebrated St. Patrick's Day in Texas. Grandma made her famous green, shamrock-shaped pancakes. I guess I need to start practicing, so I'm ready for next year. Lots of time was spent outside enjoying the nice weather. The kids loved playing with Grandpa. They would race him...Take pictures with him...And help him build his burn pile up and then watch it burn.Rachel supervised as Grandpa planted his vegetable garden.There were lots of tractor (really lawn mower) rides to be had. And even precious kisses as the sun was setting (thanks Jenny!). We can't forget Rachel's first boat ride on Grandpa's boat. She was a bit worried at first, but once they got going she enjoyed herself.

One morning Grandpa even caught a fish and Rachel was even brave enough to touch it.
Jenny was kind enough to take some family pictures of us outdoors. Even though we were smaller in numbers this time it was just as difficult to get everyone happy. Oh well, I guess pictures are meant to show life as it is! :)

Rachel had so much fun at the park one morning. Andy and her passed a ball back and forth through this tunnel for quite awhile. Rachel played Candyland for the first time and really enjoyed it.

Audrey was able to spend some good quality time with her Grandpa as well as he would walk the floors with her before bed time. This happened often up in Utah as well with Grandpa Smith, we just never got pictures of it.

Audrey discovered her feet and did a complete roll for the first time while we were in Texas.

Audrey loves her floor time, especially when Grandma would let her play with her hands.

Bath time at Grandma's - always a blast. The grandchildren all have special towels that Grandma has made for them.
We experienced Wii for the first time on this trip. Andy played a little up in Utah and then we played a bit more in Texas. Rachel even got into. She enjoyed playing some tennis and bowling. There were definitely moments of frustration, but every once in awhile she got lucky. I think she even beat Andy at bowling once. :)My mom was kind enough to sew up the waistbands of some capris I had bought for Rachel. Well, after she heard us talking about sewing her pants up she became quite interested. So, one day she discovered grandma's sewing closet and went to town sewing Mommy and Daddy shirts.

Once again the two weeks went by too quickly. We had such a good time in Texas as well. It was so nice to see everything so green and the wildflowers. The humidity was even nice! :) We had a relaxing time making wonderful memories. We were definitely spoiled and can't wait until we get to see our families again! :)