Busy day today. Brought Nora to her school -- last day of the year, then Sasha to work. From there to Heidelberg to buy German bread.

Then I went to the Optimist Christmas tree sale on Glebe but they weren't open yet so then I went to Home Depot. But first I stopped at Target to have my morning coffee, and there I bought a few small things. Then on to Home Depot where I took a bunch of greens for a project with Nora tomorrow. Checked out Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts for some more gear for said project. Finally I went home, wrapped some presents and then at noon I picked up Nora from school.

Then Nora and I had lunch with Rien at her work at FSI She's a Dutch language teacher and we spoke with her students for 90 minutes, great practice for them and fun for us. Nora enjoyed seeing the school. Afterwards we went to the "blauwe speeltuin" -- Rocky Run Park. A great day.

We decided on a smaller tree this year, for two obvious reasons.

While we were putting the tree up yesterday I took a picture. In the background you can see one of the obvious reasons, unplugging the cable for the lights.

For our year overviews I calculated our diaper usage over the past two years.

We've gone from an average of 400 diapers per month to 280 diapers per month.

We've done virtually all our purchases online so getting the data was easy.

People are often surprised at how different Leo and Adrian are. Yes, they are twins, but they're fraternal twins so genetically are as different as regular siblings.

This morning I gave them each a sandwich with cheese. Leo finished all his bread first, Adrian all his cheese.

The other day Adrian fell on his front tooth, and it got partially pushed back in. I brought him to the dentist yesterday to have it checked out.

The dentist wasn't worried about it and said the tooth should come back down by itself in a couple of weeks.

I took Adrian by bicycle, which he was excited about. "Helm!" he said several times. We used the new windscreen for the bike, which was good because it was cold.

Yesterday was pakjesavond and we had a wonderful time.

It was a little tricky doing all the logistics with 3 little kids crawling around but it worked out. After the boys ate (kale with bacon), and after Sasha and Nora came back downstairs after trying Nora's new gymnatics outfit, there was a loud noise on the door. And look! There was a sack and a box -- just like Nora predicted from previous years. The boys were excited too, they needed an extra hug.

When we brought the presents in, the kids wanted to open them immediately and Leo succeeded in tearing the paper off one of the gifts right away. But no, one gift at the time... wait for everybody to sit down... We all had an excellent time.

Started at 5:30 pm, done in about 45 minutes.

• Nora: basket and bell for her bike, schort & paint, boek Kleine Kapitein, Lego firetruck.

• Leo & Adrian both got two gifts each. A big helicopter, a Playmobil garbage truck and a Playmobil bulldozer. And for the two of them a windshield for the bike.
• Sasha & I got a few gifts too, including very precious Christmas tree decorations. And Christmas lights for one my bicycle.

The boys were both quite impressed. Sasha was holding Leo, and I was holding Adrian and Nora when he arrived in the main hall. Adrian was staring with wide open eyes. Later, in the smaller room, he was pointing several times and yelling: "kaas! kaas!" (He can't say "klaas" yet).

Nora was quite shy. When we left the car there were a few Piets and she wasn't too ready to engage with them. Later that changed and she happily accepted pepernoten. The boys only needed a few minutes to figure out that the Piets were giving away good stuff, and the Piets liked to give them candy so after about 8 handfuls we decided to slow that down.

Nora's gift remained unopened until we got home. Instead she opened her chocolate letter right away -- she was probably hungry because we skipped lunch. Leo received a Playmobil 123 helicopter, Adrian a garbage truck ("bah!"). The boys also liked to boxes with the chocolate letters. Shanthi helped them unpack their gifts.

This years there were fewer parents that we know; there haven't been many playdates recently. Overall attendance seemed a little lower than last year.

Traveling to the Embassy is always a little challenging -- Leo threw up in the car, like last time, and it was right in the middle of nap time. But we had an absolute blast.

We slept in this morning so we weren't downstairs until 7.45 am. Nora said: "hoe kan dat nou?" when her shoe was gone. The presents were on the living room table. A coloring book with stickers for Nora, and mandarins for the Leo and Adrian. The boys loved it: they got to unwrap a present and eat a mandarin, too. ("pompoen! aar'bei!" -- they learned "ijn" today).

When the boys were sleeping we made a paper boat.

In the car on our way back from the Bulgarian store we had Sinterklaas music on and Adrian recognized the words. "piet! klaas!"

On Wednesday night the Zane family arrived, late at night. Ilana finished her last homework at 1.00 am. We saw each other in the morning -- the boys were up at 7.00 am -- and it was great to see everybody.

I finished the last cranberry sauce and decorated a cake in the morning, and after the turkey went in the oven Sasha and I took the kids to Hayes park. Julian took Leo by the hand and held him really well.

Judy joined us at 12.30 pm and the turkey was done shortly afterwards. We had lunch around 2.00 pm and it was a lot of fun. My cooking experiments worked out -- the green bean casserole was a big hit. The full menu is visible on the last photo below. For dessert we had Irena's brownie, a Dutch slagroomtaart and two other pies.

After dinner we walked to the Quincy playground and on the way back Leo reached out for Julian's hand, who happily took it.

Nora has vacation and I took a day off today. It was fun to take care of the kids, and I had time to prepare some components of the Thanksgiving meal.

Nora and I made speculaas cookies. Judy came over in the afternoon.