Back to normal...

After having Andy traveling quite a bit the past 3 weeks, he's home! Rachel was so excited to see her daddy yesterday. She was very giggly and wouldn't let him out of her sight. She even let Andy put her down when she napped and went to bed for the night. And of course, Andy loved being so loved. :) Unfortunately Rachel didn't get to see her daddy today. By the time she woke up, he was already at work. When I went to Rachel's room this morning she said, "hold you, Daddy" over and over and over again. Poor girl! She probably thinks he's taken off again, but luckily he hasn't. We are lucky because Andy hardly ever travels. But when he does, we miss him. The month of April will most likely bring some late hours, but Andy's told me it won't be as bad as it was in Houston. We shall see... At least he'll make it home each night, eventually.

We finally caught up with the U.S. and did Daylight Savings on Sunday. So now the sun comes up around 7:15 am and sets around 8:15 pm. In the middle of the summer, we'll have some long days (5 am - 10 pm), which should be interesting. :) A few weeks ago I got a little creative with the tin foil and did this to Rachel's bedroom window:I guess I am pretty spoiled. Once the sun was coming up around 6:30 am and Rachel was waking up earlier, I decided to take matters into my own hands. This was the cheap way out, but I didn't really want to invest in blackout curtains for a home I do not own. So, Rachel is sleeping much better and so far the tin foil has worked out well. However, I think Andy and I are just going to have to get used to the sunshine. We have too much window to cover and I doubt our neighbors would appreciate it (our windows are in the front, unlike Rachel's which face the back).

But hey, if you're tired enough, you can sleep through sunshine, right? Last, but not least, here's a picture of Rachel this morning. I was vacuuming and she was watching her favorite (babytvchannel). Doesn't it look comfortable? The couches are right there, but I guess the floor was where she wanted to be. She was busy playing with her belly button and watching TV.

To Clean or Not to Clean

On Tuesday or Wednesday this past week Rachel insisted on having the top off of her sippy cup. So, I took the top off and let her drink away. She's actually does pretty good drinking out of a regular cup. However, this time she didn't do so great. Before we both knew it the water was all over her and the floor. Curious what she might do, I told her to clean it up. So, Rachel walked to the bathroom, got a towel, and proceeded to mop up the water spill. It was priceless and of course I didn't think of taking any pictures. So, this morning when Rachel thought it would be fun to shake her sippy cup and make it mess, I pulled out the camera to video her cleaning it up. Of course she's more interested in the camera than cleaning up, but you get the idea. And Rachel did a pretty good job of just spreading around the stickiness, so of course I had to do a little of the cleaning up myself.

Here's another video taken about 30 minutes after the first one. At least this time it was water, but there was a lot more. And all she wanted to do was play in it. It reminded me of last year when she played in the water on the sidewalk after a summer rainstorm in Houston. :) Rachel had asked for the top off of her sippy cup, once again. So, I took the top off and she proceeded to try to put the top back on - that's how this spill occurred. And this time I ended up doing all the cleaning - I guess the cleaning bug wore off! :)

Chattering Away...

Okay, so this might not be the most exciting video you've ever seen... But I love it when Rachel chatters away after waking up. I know she's gotten a good nap when she is content to just chatter away. I don't exactly now when she started this chattering after napping business, but it was probably shortly after her first birthday. Recently she can go for a good 30 minutes before she sweetly calls, "mommy, mommy". I have definitely learned that it is best to let her chatter and not rush in to get her right away. She likes her alone time and I'm also able to have a few more minutes of alone time as well. Each day it varies what she talks about. Some of the things she was chattering about today were flowers, Papa, Lexie, Whitney, and her binky. Sometimes I can understand what she's saying and other times it's just gibberish. I love when she just breaks out laughing. It's absolutely precious! Sorry about the not so exciting video, but if I tried to go in the room to get video of it, the cute chattering would stop. :)

Spring or Winter?

The official first day of Spring was March 20th, but I think the Netherlands missed the memo! We drove home in snow yesterday. As soon as we hit the Netherlands border, we were greeted by snow. At least it wasn't snowing in Paris. :) This morning I decided to let Rachel play out in the snow. I think it was her first official time playing in the snow. She was being pretty silly. She wouldn't touch the snow, because she didn't want to get "dirty". She's quite the girl! Rachel was still in her pajamas and boy was it fun to get her back inside to eat breakfast! :) I'm glad I let her play though, because most of it has already melted. It was still lightly snowing when we headed outside, so the first thing Rachel did was look up at the snow falling down.

Easter 2008

The Easter Bunny dropped off some surprises for Rachel, so once we got home yesterday Rachel was one happy girl! She even did pretty good at finding her Easter eggs. The grocery store here had dyed Easter eggs that you could buy, so we took the easy way out this year. Maybe next year Rachel will dye her first Easter egg. Here she is enjoying Easter:

Paris, France

We went to Paris this past weekend. Andy had a 4-day weekend and we had to take advantage of it! The trip started off a bit rocky, but we ended up having a great time. We drove down Friday and pretty much spent the whole day traveling. It's normally a 5-hour drive, but it ended up taking us 8 hours. Andy was flying in from Dublin that morning as well and of course his plane was delayed because of weather. So, we finally took off around 11:30 and arrived at our hotel around 8 PM Friday night. We certainly have learned a few things from this past weekend. :) Once we got to Paris we parked the car and used their metro system to get around. Paris has a great metro system! On Saturday morning we headed out on the metro system to get to the Louvre Museum. Instead of making a transfer, we decided to get out and walk the rest of the way to the Louvre. It was only about a 15-minute walk and luckily it wasn't raining yet. Here we are taking some pictures along our way to the Louvre:

So, the first stop we made in Paris was the Louvre Museum. Of course you could spend a whole week there, but after a couple hours we had seen enough. It was super-crowded; however, we did get to take a peak at the Mona Lisa over the crowds! :) Here are some pictures of us in the Louvre: I took this picture from a window in the Louvre. And up above you can see Rachel checking out the painted ceiling in the Louvre. After the Louvre we headed over to Notre-Dame. There was a horrendous line to go inside, so we just took a picture from the outside. I'm sure we'll get back to Paris some day and get a chance to see the inside.

After Notre-Dame we hopped on the metro system and headed over to the Eiffel Tower. I don't think I have ever waited in more lines. We were probably at the Eiffel Tower for about 3 hours and we spent about 5 minutes at the top. We had to wait in line for the tickets, for the first elevator to take us up, for the second elevator to take us up, for the first elevator to take us down, and for the last elevator to take us down. It was crazy, but it was quite the experience. Rachel had no fear! :) It was freezing cold once we got all the way up, but at least it wasn't raining. And you can see all the pictures of Rachel being so patient as we waited in line after line after line...

On Sunday we headed to the Chateau de Versailles. We had to check in Rachel's stroller, so she had free reign. She did pretty good though! Rachel loved climbing up and down the stairs. As you can tell, we were pretty lenient with Rachel's binky this past weekend. But considering the lack of sleep and going places she wasn't really interested in, you couldn't blame us too much! :) Down below is a picture of Andy and Rachel in the Hall of Mirrors, which is where the Treaty of Versailles was ratified at the end of WW I. Rachel's favorite part of the Chateau was playing outside in the gardens. We should have headed there first!

Rachel loved riding the metro system. She always wanted to get "up" on the "train". Although once we would get on the train, she'd want to get off at the next stop. She made plenty of friends on the metro. After spending most of the day in Versailles we headed over to the Arc de Triomphe. It was cold and rainy, so we didn't stay long. Here we are in front of the Arc:
We enjoyed our little getaway to Paris. I'm hoping the next time we make the trip it will be a little less crowded (if that's possible) and a bit warmer! :)

Just Singing Away...

In the past couple of weeks Rachel has been really good at filling in the blanks while we sing songs to her. Whenever we pause she'll simply sing the next word or two. Rachel has had quite the obsession with the alphabet. The "ABC's" have to be sung to her every night before she goes to bed. So, it's only fitting that the alphabet was her first song to sing on her own. Last night Andy simply asked Rachel to sing him a song and away she went. :) Soon after singing the alphabet she also sang "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star". I was able to get her on video during lunch today - it's easiest when she's stuck in her high chair. So, here she is singing her "ABC's" and "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star". I love how it really sounds like "tinkle". She's not quite sure when the song actually ends, but it's still so cute! :)

Way to go, E&Y

Ernst & Young (E&Y), my husband's employer, never ceases to amaze me. He came home from work yesterday and told me he had received an email about vacation. Good news, I thought, they changed their minds... Okay, so not really. But some guy back in New Jersey who helps coordinate the international assignments emailed Andy back to tell him that he gets the Dutch minimum of 20 days vacation! Wahoo, right? Well, it's only 2 more days than what he would have in the U.S. Let me back track a little bit so you can maybe understand why I was so irritated about this whole situation. How far back do I have to go...

Well, let's start with orientation day in October in New Jersey. E&Y flew us out there to attend a pretty pathetic 2-hour meeting. In the meeting we were told lots of info about stuff like insurance, vacation, policies, etc.... We were told that Andy would get the traditional U.S. vacation, which is 18 days and then the Dutch holidays. Okay, no big deal. But we were also told that we could purchase additional vacation (just like everyone else back in the U.S. can). So, that would potentially help with days needed to travel around and for home leave.

Fast forward to December. We are having dinner with some friends here who are also on assignment with an accounting firm here (not E&Y). Anyhow, we find out that they get the 30 days that are given to the Dutch employees over here. So, we got shafted. No worries though, right? We can purchase additional vacation. We do have to look at the "whole package", as E&Y would say.

On to January, Andy emails somebody about purchasing additional vacation. They say you can't yet, probably in February. So, February rolls around and Andy doesn't hear anything from them, so he sends another email. And the response was pretty much, "Oops, the policy says you can't purchase additional vacation." So, let me get this straight. We get Dutch holidays (6 vs. 10 in the U.S.), but U.S. vacation time (18 vs. 30 for the Dutch). So, they shafted us both ways. It's not like we need the 4th of July off over here, but still it bugs me. And if he has the 18 days that everyone (at his level) back in the U.S. has, then why isn't he illegible to buy additional vacation like everyone back in the U.S. can? I don't get it!

And then it just bugs me that they make it sound like they're doing us a HUGE favor with sending us over. I don't think so.... I mean, he was asked to take this assignment. We didn't apply for an international assignment, which is usually what is done. Granted, the decision was ours, but he was still asked. Secondly, we've had to make a lot of sacrifices moving over here. We only have one car, we're trusting our home to renters, my family and friends are so far away, we're living in a home half the size of our home back in Texas, we don't have a lot of the comforts and conveniences that we had back in the U.S., everything is more expensive, etc., etc., etc... I could go on and on and on.... I don't want to sound miserable here, because I'm not. I'm just peeved about this whole vacation thing.

I do realize and understand that this is a neat opportunity. While we are over here we're going to be able to see parts of the world that I never would have seen otherwise. But it still bothers me that E&Y feels like they are doing us a HUGE favor. I wish they could say "thank you" or "we appreciate all you are sacrificing and what can we do to make it a bit easier?". Have they ever said that? No, not that I've heard.

Okay, that felt good to vent! :) I am grateful for the additional 2 days that Andy gets. Things will work out, they always do. And one day I'll look back at this and think, why was I so bugged? :)

Book Tag

"TAG FIVE"
1. Pick up the nearest book (at least 123 pages).
2. Turn to page 123.
3. Find the 5th sentence
4. Post the 5th sentence on your blog
5. Tag 5 people

"Callie rushed with her to the trauma room." From: Balance of Power by: Richard North Patterson

I tag: Robyn, Kimberly, Claire, Sarah, & Melissa (welcome to blogging!).

"Mean Mommy"

Yesterday we were driving home from church and here's a conversation we all had in the car:

Rachel: Hold you, Mommy. (really meaning hold me)

Me: Rachel, I can't hold you.

Rachel: Hold you!!!!

Me: You have to stay in your car seat and be safe.

Rachel: Hold you!!!

Me: I would love to hold you Rachel, but I just can't.

The conversation went on for quite awhile like this and then:

Rachel: Mean Mommy!

Me: What???

Rachel: Mean Mommy!

Me(turning to Andy): Did she just say what I thought she did?

Andy(as he pats my leg and smiles): Yep, and you better get used to it.

I couldn't believe my little girl was calling me a mean mommy! Granted we were driving home right smack at her naptime and it's a 30 minute drive, but it still surprised me. She just wanted to be held. I'm sure there will be many more times when she'll say I'm mean and probably not as nicely as it was said yesterday. But I'm not really a good mom if I'm not called a mean mom, right?

Here's Rachel after church yesterday. We all love to get in comfy clothes after church. :) And Rachel was especially proud of her hood and pockets yesterday.