Alex cooked Chilli Con Carne for dinner

Yum!

Saturday Brunch at home

Dinner tastes better when your Brother feeds you

Thanks Kimberley, Andrew, Thomas and Riley

Ollie's birthday dinosaurs are teaching him all about perseverance! He got there in the end.

Curls!

I've put off Ollie's First Haircut, because I've been nurturing these little blonde curls.

Computer Geeks .....

Just like their Dad :-)

A Birthday video

Here we are singing "Happy Birthday" in Dutch. Watch for the cake thief at the end!

Oliver's First Birthday

The line up of presents!


Look at the mess, he must have been spoilt.


Trying out his Trunki suitcase

My handsome boy!

Oliver's First Birthday Party

We did what is starting to turn into a tradition and rented the Clubhuis down the road. Unfortunately, a February birthday doesn't come with the same weather as an August birthday. It was cold and rainy. The only good thing about that was that it meant that the kids were happy to stay inside. If it had been dry, I'm sure Alex and his "mates" would have wanted to go outside and play in the playground.

We chose the Hungry Caterpillar as a "theme" .... mainly because I had seen a cake on the internet that I thought I could make.


I had the balloon shop down the road make a balloon caterpillar as a decoration.

The party food!

and the cake

The bigger kids had a table with colouring and playdoh

Presents!

The Birthday Boy

Mr Caterpillar again

Alex helped to clean up after the party

Look how far he's come in a week

Alex is Two and a Half!

Where did the time go? We measured him on his "Half" Birthday - he's 90cm and almost 14.5kg.

Walking

I think we can say it's official.

Christmas 2009

Christmas Eve - Ollie was in awe of the tree and all the presents.




and Alex stopped dead in his tracks when we came downstairs ....


present time!

Alex watching "Massey Ferguson" - we love it, thanks Nana

Ollie playing later in the day



Our Christmas Cake - I think this is the first I've ever actually baked. Usually we've been eating at other people's place or I've been too lazy. It's kind of ironic I chose the year that I'm the busiest I've ever been to finally bake.




and lots of present opening videos - thanks everyone - the boys were spoilt beyond their wildest dreams.

The Great snow of 2009

20th December

The neighbourhood really got into the swing of things.


Our Neighbours Richard, Aoife and Rian built a snowman at the park.

The park under snow.

My poor bike.

The view out the kitchen window.

and the view out to the street - there are even snowdrifts on the window!

out the bedroom window

the neighbours kids attacked their own home

and made their own snowman

and then the sun came out

Monday 21st - getting ready to brave the cold

we had to get the big guns out at work to clear the carpark at work.


the view from my office

and from the travel unit

frozen lavender outside our front door