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.