Valentines Day

Kids don't really celebrate Valentines Day in Europe. I only found 1 package of heart shaped gummies at 1 of the grocery stores (and they were expensive). It's a good thing I picked up some thing at the dollar store in the States (most amazing, organized dollar store I have ever been to).

So...since I had picked decorations and candy for Valentines day I figured we need to have a party :). Kherington helped me make a bag of Valentines to give to her friends. Most of the ideas came from disney's site the rest came from pinterest. Kherigton painted and glued. My personal favorite was a homemade scratch & win...so many more things you could do with that. Anyways, back to Valentines day...

Kherington decorated a box to put her Valentines in (can you tell she just woke up from nap...still wearing the diaper). Aside from the ones we made together, Ryan and I each made her a valentine. She liked the candy, but even more than that, she loved toting her box around and opening it up to see all the stuff inside.

For the actual day, I decorated the main room with hearts, setup the table for the party and put a bunch of balloon in Kherington's room. Ryan went in to wake her up in the morning and she roll over and told him to go away (yeah...2 going to 17). So he left, then a couple minutes later she was excitedly calling him back into her room to show her all the balloon. She thought it was pretty much the coolest thing ever.

I made some heart shaped scones for breakfast, then as soon as she left for school, Kevin started popping balloon...what a good brother. For the party the kids decorated/ate personal heart shaped pizza for lunch (we made ones to share for the adults...yummy...pesto chicken). Then frosted loads of heart shaped sugar cookies. It was fun, but I think until kids are better able to do things on their own I need to limit any gathering to 1 project.

We had so much leftover pizza (and the house was a mess) so I asked Ryan if we could postpone our planned dinner to the following evening. The next night Kherington helped her daddy with grilling the steak and making the mushroom sauce (she is an excellent mushroom cutter-uper). We also tried out a white bean/cauliflower puree that was okay, but I couldn't get it super smooth because my food processor went out...very sad day.

Family

Our huge Mac has been having problems spitting DVDs out so we finally looked up to see if it was still under warranty. It was, but the closest Apple store was 2.5 hours away in Germany. Ryan took a half day one Friday and we drove over. We were surprised to find that the store was at a mall just like you'd see in the US. Pretty awesome. Since we had driven so far, the Apple store said they could have the computer fixed by the end of the day so we wouldn't have to drive out again. AWESOME! We wandered the mall. Got Kherington some ice cream then spent a good 2 hours in the food court eating and people watching. On our way back to the apple store I found a purse on clearance for 15 euros that is pretty much what I had been looking for in the US. It was a good trip and very nice to have the computer still under warranty and not have to pay the 150 euros to fix the DVD drive later.

Kherington has stopped taking daily naps. She is now napping about every other day. On the off days, she has 'quiet movie time.' With her red Elmo couch on the the normal couch, a snack and the dvd player she is ready to go. Kevin can't mess with the DVD player or snacks when she's up that high.

We've been having family scripture study by reading the kids Book of Mormon Stores book. We read one page each day. So far Kherington likes it. We try to do it before Ryan leaves for work in the morning, but sometimes it ends up being in after bath time in the evening.

Since I did updates on the kids, here's a quick updated on the parents:
Ryan is still working and busy season hasn't started yet so it's pretty sweet. He drops Kherington off at school in the morning then heads to work. He knows way more French than I do, spends a lot of time on Elder's Quorum stuff and recently started playing some basketball with some colleagues. He is a trooper and has been doing p90x with me in the mornings at 6am.

I am still home with the kids. All 3 of us took our turns getting sick. Pretty much all of January we spent rotating the flu. Fun times. I'm still trying to figure out how to be productive. I feel like I get next to nothing done each day. Even with Kherington gone for the mornings, I still have Kevin and between being sick and teething, I've been holding him a ton while he sleeps. I am still working just a couple hours a week. I like it for the most part, but when we cycling flu it wasn't so much fun.

Kevin Update

Oh Kevin. He is getting to milestones so much faster than Kherington. As of January 21st he is a walker...that means walking at 9.5 month. He is also tall and LOVES to climb so nothing is safe anymore.

He loves eating (go figure). He isn't much for purees. The only 'puree' I give him is a applesauce mixed with baby cereal to make sure he is full before putting him down at night. Aside from that he like pancakes, noodles, bread, overcooked veggies, etc. His chair currently has a bench under it so he can stand while he's eating.

He loves to empty the plastic cupboard (the only one without a lock) and does so multiple times a day...as soon as I pick it up everything is back out again. We are still working on the sleeping. For awhile he was doing good sleeping at night, taking a morning nap then an afternoon nap and then flu season came to our house. Everyone but Ryan has been rotating being sick. Not fun.

He loves going outside. He get really upset in the mornings when Kherington and Ryan leave and he has to stay home with mom.

Stories:
1. Kherington was sitting on the couch eating some pretzel sticks and peanut butter just minding her own business and Kevin walked over so he was right below her and started screaming like she had done something to him...but I had watched the entire thing and she had done absolutely nothing. He's learning how to manipulate his crying way way way too early!
2. I was in the kitchen cooking and I hear Kevin start to cry. My hands were already dirty so I finished what I was doing then went to find him. He is in their room, had climbed onto Kherington's bed and from the bed onto the shelves and was just perched there crying for help...atleast he had enough sense not to try getting down by himself.
3. He LOVES the bath and already knows how to turn the water on and off. I'll tell Kherington it's time to turn the water off and she's do so. Then Kevin stands up and pulls up the lever so it's on full blast. If I turn it off, he just goes and ahead and turns it right back on. He thinks it a game. I can't wait for him to actually understand the word 'no.'
4. He can climb up the slide all by himself. I'll often turn around and not only has he climbed up the slide, but he'll be standing on the top clapping his hands. On the up side, he has good falling technique...he goes in the a ball and his bum almost always hits the ground first.

Kherington Update

Kherington is still a crazy little girl. Mornings have gotten a bit tighter on time with school starting, but there is still a tiny bit of playtime. As you can see below when empty boxes are left around there are so many fun things to do in them...like eat breakfast :). She also likes when her daddy play's 'train' by pushing Kherington and Kevin around in separate boxes. It is dark when she leaves for school.

So school...we have a routine down so Ryan leaves around 8:15am, drops her off and heads to work. Kherington no longer cries at drop off and likes to watch the video monitor of Ryan walking away. She loves playing with a little boy named Jayanth who also speaks English. I'm not positive what they do at school on a daily basis because every day when I ask she gives me this scripted answer: "we play with toys, we play inside, we play outside, we sing songs." I know they play outside rain or shine, hot or cold so she has to be bundled up (especially since it's been around -10 degrees C for the last week or so. The only two activities I know they've done are a field trip to a farm and learned how to clean toilets (when she went potty at home she told me you don't stick your hand in the bowl and showed me how you use the rag glove to clean the top).

Two funny stories I heard from other parents: (1) Kherington is apparently quite the talker...in English that is....one of the boys in the class has picked up phrases she says and now speaks with an American accent instead of an Indian accent. (2) Another friends mom said he daughter was at home playing and started yelling 'Stop Kherington, Stop Kherington.' The mom asked where she heard that and the little girls says 'Madame Sandy says that'. Madame Sandy is Kherington's school teacher...so she might not be the most obedient child at school.

After School:
She eats a chocolate croissant on the walk home, then it's lunch time. That usually entails pasta or peanut butter and honey or apple and cheese. Just something to fill her up at little more. She now naps about every other day. She either naps or has 'quiet movie time.' I finally got smart and for quiet movie time I started having her lay in her bed with the dvd player (so she falls asleep).

She likes to do crafts. Some of our recent ones include water wow painting, pasta necklaces and glue collages and of course normal painting. She has also gotten a little smarter and now asks me to move her elmo couch on top of the normal couch so Kevin can't reach whatever it is she has.

A couple other things: she changes her clothes multiple times and currently loves dresses, she could eat none stop everyday, she can navigate our mac and knows how to open front row to take picture of herself (as well as change backgrounds) as well as open firefox and and browse to sesame street. She loves playing with friends, helping in the kitchen and or course bath time.

Afternoon at Technopolis

We once again headed to Technopolis, but this time we went on a Wednesday afternoon (we normally go in the morning). It was nice and empty which makes the trip even more fun. Kherington's favorite activities are coloring butterflies on the touchscreen, scanning food at the grocery store and printing money with her picture on it in the bank. This time Kevin got in on the fun too. He loves the ambulance, the garden and literally clearing the shelves in the grocery store.

Kids will be Kids

I'll write a kids update soon, but here they are:

Normal Life (in Belgium)

Today I picked Kherington up from school. Before getting her, I had stopped by the grocery store to pick up a couple things. After picking her up her, I was pushing my new phil & teds stroller with my grocery bag sitting in bottom seat and holding Kherington's hand when we saw a frites truck (today Kherington went to a different location for school so we don't normally walk this path). Anyways, I stopped and got her some frites. I wish I had a camera for someone to take a picture of us. Kevin chilling up top in the stroller, Kherington in the bottom digging into her cone of frites and me pushing the stoller and carrying a re-usable bag with celery leaves hanging out of the top. Just a normal day of life with kids in Belgium.