Vacances Week 1

Here's our first week of Vacances (vacation):

 

We went to the hot air balloon festival...and didn't see one hot air balloon (just a few baskets).  I think I set my expectations too high for this event.  I was envisioning it being like Utah's hot air balloon festival where there are TONS of balloons and you can walk inside them and everything.  Well, they didn't set them off until 8:30 at night and we left the park at 6:30 so we missed them completely.  The kids still had a great time at the playground though.

Kevin is a little climber.  See the car below?  Well, he moved it over to use as a ladder then climbed up and into the water table.  His sister saw how much fun he was having and joined him :).

We've done a couple arts and crafts things.  Kherington currently loves to glue.  I just get out a glue stick or bottle and some torn up paper and she glues it all onto a page.  I also finally broke out the paint.  It has been a long time.  I'm pretty sure this was Kevin's first painting experience.  He ate some.  painted for a couple minutes and was done.  Kherington on the other hand took her time.

The kids eat A LOT.  You wouldn't guess it by looking a them, but they seriously are eating 90% of the time.  Yes, a lot of what they eat is fruits/veggies and I pretty much make everything from scratch so all in they eat healthily.  Oh and LOVE the last picture on this row.  I feel like I post all the happy dandy picture, but lets be honest, life is not like that most of the time.  They fight a majority of the time.  Well, they were screaming at each other in their room, so I just opened the door and snapped a picture.  This time it was over the umbrella that both of them wanted to play with.

Kevin is really good about going down for nap.  I hand him is pacifier and his water and he walks to their bedroom.  Lately he makes dash for Kherington's bed, gets all settled and starts reading.  I think it's more of a game for him because he doesn't get upset when I snatch him and put him in his crib.  Oh, and Kevin loves purses or in the picture below anything that goes around your neck/shoulder.  In this case, he was super upset that I wasn't going to let him take the bag to the park.  I told him we'd have to say home until he took it off and he started throwing a tantrum.

As I posted previously, Kheringotn falls asleep in different places each time. Here are some more good ones:

And here's more of what Kevin is up to while Kherington naps:

Bed Upgrades

I found a set of bunk beds in the classifieds here for 50 Euros so we got them and set them up in the kids room.  We were able to fit out mattresses we had in storage into the frame...they're a little shorter and wider than ideal, but it works.  Kherington was dead set on sleeping on the top bunk.  I was a little concerned that Kevin would be able to climb the ladder, but we ended up having to teach Kherington how to so hopefully that means Kevin has a little while tile he's tall enough.  Kevin is still in his crib.  We just moved it so it's on the other side of the room.  Oh and please notice how dark the room is because I finally got a black-out shade and put it up.  I should have done that a long time ago.

As I said, Kevin is still in his crib.  He has yet to climb out of it, but he knows how to climb in.  Take a look:

The plan is to keep him in the crib until we get back from Myrtle Beach.  Then we'll probably take the side off the crib.  Once he's adjusted to that we can move him to the bunk bed and put the crib away (making more room to play in their tiny room).

Grocery Shopping Adventures

Ryan has humored me and my ingredient finding a lot lately.  We drove over to Aachen, Germany one weekend just so I could check-out the grocery stores there.  I had read a blog that talked a lot about liking to cook with whole spelt flour instead of normal whole wheat flour (Beligum's whole wheat flour is really grainy) and she happens to live in Germany (and said you could get it for pretty cheap there).  We went to 4 different stores: Kaufland, Real, Metro, and Aldi.  It's shocking how much more baking supplies they have in Germany.  I picked up the whole spelt flour at Kaufland along with 20 bags of almonds (way way cheaper than Belgium), unsweetened coconut and some other random items (found canned black beans in chili sauce which I'm excited to try).  Next was Real.  For what I normally buy, Real was a tiny bit more expensive than Kaufland but still a lot less than Belgium.  Metro is the Makro of Germany (bulk store) and we picked up some super cheap sour gummies and pepperoni there.  Then Aldi I got more almonds, mandarin oranges and a couple other items.

Then the next weekend I wanted to get some Coconut Oil and I'd heard it was pretty inexpensive at the Asian store downtown.  They were sold out, but I did get some egg roll wrappers (and made some delicious/easy egg rolls the next week).  We took the bus there and back which the kids loved.  I think this was one of the first times Kevin actually got to sit by himself...well, when his sister didn't steal his seat.

Kids Kids Kids

There haven't been any huge trips as of lately...just a lot of kid time (for me that is).  So here are their updates:

Kherington
I think I've said this before, but ever since I stopped forcing Kherington to have a nap, she falls asleep on her own.  I've tried to snap pictures of her in her awkward sleeping positions...these positions/pillows/blankets are done all on her own.

Aside from the sleep time, her imagination just continue to develop.  She is loves to make believe and talk to herself or her stuff animal in a mixture of French and English.  I put together a book for her to practice writing her letters.  You can see an 'A' that she did one of the pictures below.  She thinks it pretty cool to write on the page (a sheet protected page) with dry erase marker and wipe it off all by herself.  She still LOVES the color pink.  She also loves to read books, help in the kitchen, watch movies and do anything with her daddy.

Kevin
Oh man, this little guy is getting to be a huge wild child but super sweet sometimes too.  He helps his daddy unload the dishwasher every morning.  Helps me hang up the laundry when it comes out of the washer.  He undoes the entire roll of toilet paper in the bathroom.  He loves to climb.  He loves to be outside.  He is a little bully to his sister (I don't know how many handfuls of hair - Kherington's hair that is - I've clawed out of his fist).  He also really like rackets, bats and balls.  Oh and how could I forget sand.  He loves sand...sitting in it, playing with it, eating it.  Yucky!  He is now pretty good at taking his afternoon nap.  He only gets his pacifier for bedtime and nap time (and right when he wakes up).  So I show him the pacifier, tell him to get his water and he walks himself to his crib.  I like it.

Open Air Museum Bokrijk

Today we drove over to the Open Air Museum in Bokrijk. With our Techjopolis season pass, we each get 1 free entrance/year so we figured we'd give it a go.  We arrived just as the lunch break started...a lot of the houses close from 12:30 - 2:00 for lunch.  So we started off with our picnic lunch.  The kids thought the picnic was pretty fun :).  The actual museum part of it would have been fun IF there had been English translations of anything.  It was ALL dutch.  It kind of surprised us since most places we've been do have English.  Since we couldn't read anything we wandered around and checked out the old houses and such (it's a old village where you can wander and see what thing were like way back when).

Next we went and found the playground.  AMAZING!  Playgrounds here definitely do not disappoint.  There are playgrounds for each age group.  Both Ryan and I took Kherington down the steep slide.  As I was climbing up with her, I couldn't believe I was doing it.  So not my thing.  I don't mind heights, but I like being strapped in.  Well, when you sit down the slide, there are little roller bars to help you line up before shooting down.  Ryan had pretty good form when he landed at the bottom.  I on the other hand went shooting off the end and landed on the gravel.  I think the adults at the bottom got a kick out of it.  I headed to the swings with Kevin while Ryan continued the slides with Kherington.  They also went down the twisty one.  I'm pretty sure Kherington's going to think the US playgrounds are pretty pathetic.