November 2016

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.

After a renovation the Quincy park playground reopened yesterday. We went to check it out, as did many other families -- it was very crowded. The next day it was cold and very windy and we went again, and it was virtually empty.

It's a beautiful playground, with equipment that is fun for bigger kids too, which is nice because Nora is starting to get a little too old for the things at Hayes park. Adrian loves the music equipment. Not so much to make music yet, but there are "sticks" there to play with, and he loves grabbing those. Leo enjoys playing with the gate of the playground.