Van Gogh Museum

After living 10 minutes away from Amsterdam for over 2 years now, we finally made it to the Van Gogh Museum. I read a biography of Van Gogh written by Irving Stone last year - Lust for Life - and really enjoyed the novel. I still have memories in grade school of learning about Van Gogh and trying to mimic his painting, Starry Night (although that painting is in New York's Museum of Modern Art). Anyhow, we enjoyed our walk through the museum last Saturday. The only disappointing thing was that all his sketches and drawings he did early on in his career were not displayed. I was anxious to see his emergence as an artist. His first drawings are not always displayed in order to help preserve them better. I did find out from a friend that she saw them last summer. So, hopefully between now and the end of May they will display them again and I can go check them out.

Anyhow, after exploring the museum we had a picnic lunch in Museumplein (museum area of Amsterdam). We've never taken pictures in front of the "I amsterdam" letters, so we took some. Unfortunately the placement of the letters wasn't the greatest. After grabbing some pictures, it began to rain so we ran to the tram and headed home. Definitely an enjoyable Saturday in Amsterdam! :)

The Joys of Spring

We have had a very nice first week of Spring around here. The weather has actually been very nice - mid 50s. So, we have enjoyed several days at the park. Here's Audrey playing away at a park Tuesday morning while Rachel was at Joy School:

On the way home from Joy School on Tuesday we took some pictures in the flowers that have bloomed:
Last night we enjoyed the sunset and some good, old-fashioned sidewalk chalk:

Spring is definitely one of my favorite times of the year. It means no more coats, gloves, and scarves. It means Easter and birthdays. It means flowers, birds chirping, and leaves on trees. I am definitely going to miss the seasons that we are able to enjoy here in Holland. I wish Spring lasted a bit longer in Texas. Here's hoping for an enjoyable last Spring in Holland...

Our Girls

These girls sure do bring us lots of joy! And they are girlie girls!!! We are reminded of that fact as we have lots of drama, dress-ups, jewelry, dolls, and pink lint to clean out of the dryer! :)

Okay...

When we got home from Italy last Saturday we noticed that our caller ID on our local phone was full of "private" numbers. We figured the doctor's office had been trying to get a hold of us regarding Audrey's parasite test. So, on Monday I called the doctor's office. Instead of being able to share any results with me the receptionist (assistant, to be politically correct) scheduled me for a phone call with the doctor on April 2nd. I guess the doctor's really busy. So, we figured all was well. I mean if they weren't in any rush to let me know the results everything must be fine.

Well, last night around 5 I get a phone call from a "private" caller. It was an assistant from the doctor's office. Our conversation went something like this.

A (assistant): alkjflskjfa;slfkjs;afkdja;fkdjaf (Dutch)
Me: English, please?
A: Oh yes, this is the polieclinic calling about Audrey. We've been trying to get a hold of you.
Me: Yes, I was on holiday, but I called on Monday and an appointment to speak with the doctor was schedule for April 2nd.
A: Oh, okay, to check on the 7-day ajfkl;jsa;fkjsfa;k (Dutch word).
Me: What?
A: The parasite treatment.
Me: What, my daughter has a parasite?
A: Yes, didn't you know?
Me: No, no one would tell me anything on Monday.
A: Oh, well I need to fax in some information to the apotheek (pharmacist) of your choice and you need to pick it up...

I'll spare you the rest of the details of the conversation. But seriously, not exactly the way I thought something like this would be handled. And honestly, I've been home most of the week and there haven't been any calls from "private" callers this week until last night. So, yes, they tried all week last week to get a hold of me, but they didn't try until Thursday evening of this week. Oh well, I guess!

Anyhow, so Audrey has a parasite. I'm going this afternoon to the apotheek to pick up her medicine. Seven days - 3 times a day. Lots of fun, but hopefully it gets rid of her parasite. Poor thing. I guess I shouldn't think it's ridiculous when everyone is concerned about my child's weight. Although I don't think Audrey is going to turn into a chunker after the parasite is gone, but hopefully she'll start gaining more weight. I just wish I could know when and where she picked up the parasite. Public pool, some food, the sand at the playground, etc..??? And has she really been living with it for 6 months??? So odd....

And then last night I was so floored about my daughter having a parasite that I wasn't thinking very clearly and forgot that I needed to reschedule my April 2nd appointment because we are going to be out of town. So, I call this morning to reschedule and guess what? The doctor actually has time to call me next Friday, March 26th. Go figure! And of course I'll be in London that day, so Andy gets to take the call. But I wasn't going to risk asking for another day, we may not of heard from the doctor until May.... Ohhhh, I'm such a poet! Anyhow, I know they're busy and whatnot, but I really haven't appreciated that whole way this has been handled. Nothing is perfect anywhere though and I am grateful that we have some answers and Audrey will be able to be treated...

Proof

It was a cell phone that coaxed Rachel to walk; today it was the vacuum that got Audrey to walk... :)

15 months

Audrey enjoyed her 15 month mark in Rome. Here she is enjoying her breakfast in our hotel room:

Checking out the Golden Globe in the Vatican Gardens:
Looking out over Rome at the top of St. Peter's Basilica:
Finishing off the day with some gelato(okay so she's not really a fan of ice cream):

At her 14-month check-up Audrey was 28.5 inches tall and weighed 17 pounds, 2 ounces. Her front 8 teeth are in and two of her molars have just popped through. In the past two weeks she has become a lot braver about walking. She'll take a few steps on her own and of course walks along the couch and furniture. Her latest favorite thing is to push her stroller around. When she is in the mood, she'll point out her eyes, ears, nose, mouth, teeth, tongue, belly button, hands, and feet.

Audrey is quite the chatterbox. It's mostly nonsense. You can seriously carry on a whole nonsense conversation with her. Some words she can say are hello, hi, bye, dog(which includes birds, cats, ducks, dogs, etc...), thank you, nose, eyes, no-no-no, mama, dada, baby, nana(banana), night-night, and I'm sure a few more that I'm forgetting. On occasion she can be quite generous with kisses, giving you kiss after kiss after kiss - it's really fun! :)

I've been slacking on the video recording recently, but here's one of the latest:

Audrey is one active little toddler. She has mastered screwing tops off of anything and everything. She keeps us all laughing with the cute little things she does. It's fun to watch her discover her world and form relationships with those around her. Her hair is getting lighter, so I think we are going to have another blondie. After a summer in the sun, her hair will definitely be blonde. Her hair is getting a bit longer and getting the cute little curls in the back just like her sister had! :) We love Audrey so much and are so glad she's part of our family.

This is what happens...

...when you're skinny:Wish I could claim the same problem!

The Highlight of the Weekend

We had lots of family fun this past weekend. We enjoyed some time at an indoor play place with the girls and two other families. We spent a fun Saturday evening eating pizza and playing games with friends. Saturday and Sunday afternoons we took "family naps". I absolutely love that Rachel will still nap! :) We also enjoyed church and talking to family members on the phone and computer. Here are some pictures of the girls having fun on Saturday....

However, I believe the highlight of the weekend was when Rachel helped her daddy shine his shoes Sunday evening. Andy mentioned Sunday morning as he put his shoes on that they needed to be shined. Rachel asked all day long when they were going to shine his shoes. Sunday soon slipped by, but right before bedtime Rachel enjoyed helping her daddy shine his shoes:

Results are in...

I just received a call from the doctor who saw Audrey about two weeks ago. The blood tests all came out clear. She was concerned it may be celiac disease, but from the blood tests it's not looking like that's the case... So, we have some other fun tests to do (I'll spare you the details) and we are going to make an appointment to see a dietician. We'll see if the other tests point to something else or if we just have a petite baby.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that...

The past few weeks have been really busy around here. When I try to pinpoint what we've done it's nothing grand, just a whole lot of stuff. We've had our fair share of illnesses the past few weeks from the stomach flu to teething to yucky colds with fevers. We've also had our fair share of doctor visits - shots given and blood drawn. I never knew that they would actually draw 7 vials of a blood from a 14-month old, but they will. Audrey's being testing for numerous things to see why she isn't putting on weight. In the meantime we're just trying to be patient as we wait for the results...

We've also had church stuff that has kept us busy, trying to plan our last few trips, and teaching Joy School. A few Saturdays ago I put together a ladies night out and I believe all 11 of us had a good time. One weekend we enjoyed going to an indoor water park with some friends (of course we left the camera in the car). We all enjoyed the water slides and hanging out in the much warmer toddler pool! :) Rachel and I had a date last weekend to see the local international school put on a play of Aladdin. She enjoyed it and when it was over, asked if we could start it again. In the midst of all this we did recognize Valentine's. Andy brought home beautiful roses from Ecuador for me and some smaller roses for the girls. Rachel exchanged valentines with her Joy School friends and the girls also received some special valentines in the mail from their grandmas and grandpas.

The view from our house has looked a lot like this the past few weeks:

That's snow on top of the frozen canal in front of our home. This past weekend there were parents out there shoveling the snow off the ice so their children could ice skate.

We have definitely had an unusual amount of snow and cold days this winter. But we've tried to have some fun with it:
Over at the shopping center near our home there's a new clearance store. When my friends told me about these leotards for one euro, I had to go stock up. The leg warmers were only 50 cents a pair and the girls look pretty cute in their dress-ups. Some days Rachel wears her leotard all day. I don't know how she manages to stay warm enough, but she does...

Since we've had a lot of snow days we've tried to do some fun indoor things. One day we met some friends at a nearby indoor playplace. It was the first time Audrey has been to one since she's been mobile and she enjoyed it as well. It will be much more fun once she finally decides to walk!

We've had fun indoors playing dress-up:
Doing a bit of coloring:
Painting a princess or two:
And trying to sort through all the books to find the perfect one:
Here's a much happier Rachel after about five days of an icky cold:

Audrey's done a lot of cuddling this past week with shots, blood being drawn, teething, and a very yucky cold:

Luckily though Audrey is doing better and was having fun messing around with the computer this afternoon:

Life is definitely keeping us busy. We are down to the phase of trying to figure out where we still need to go visit and what we still need to buy before we end our European adventure. Hopefully the next couple of months I'll find more time to update the blog more often and be able to share some of our last adventures here...