I took the kids for a short bike ride after dinner. It was dark and drizzling but we're well equipped for that.

Another milestone... we removed the gates to the living room. We used to have them to keep the guys in the living room but we haven't used them in the past several weeks.

Adrian went down the stairs a few times this week, all by himself.

I took the kids out for dinner tonight, in Nora's favorite place, the boterhammenrestaurant.

We had a fun evening, and it was pretty easy. Would have been a different story only 6 months ago.

There were only a few other people in the restaurant. One of the new dishes they had was "Dutch mini pancakes" -- poffertjes. We tried them, but the sandwiches will remain our favorites.

Our first meal without Sasha was pasta with red sauce, a favorite. When I told the kids about this in the grocery store, they were happy and Leo immediately remembered: "blote buik!" The previous time we had this dinner I made them take out their shirts, so they wouldn't stain, and they liked that. So Leo got to take of his shirt for dinner again.

Speaking of which -- the boys like to point out: "papa dikke buik!". Obviously they have poor judgement of these matters, being only 2 years old. In any case, they will also point to each other's belly and exclaim the same.