A Visit from Mom: Part 2

Trying to catch up with events of this year... Just a few more notes and pictures from Mom's visit in October. Full album can be seen at Shutterfly (link will work when they're uploaded, will update).

Cousins Julie (& MacKenna & Riley) and Jessica (& Savannah) came over for dinner. Mom and I each made our version of Spanakopita (Mom's with less oil, which is healthier, mine with oil between every layer of filo, which is much yummier!), pizza for the kids, and salad. Since our table is so small, we brought in an extra table so we could fit everyone. Ella and Felix really liked having their 2nd cousins and 2nd cousins once removed (or something like that...!) visit us.


L-R: MacKenna, Felix, Nicki, Dianne, Julie, Savannah, Jessica

So what did we do while Mom was here? Well Ella had to go to school every day as usual so I brought her to school while Felix stayed with his Oma. She made him breakfast and got him dressed and when I got home, we took Felix to his preschool to play with his friends, paste & color, learn his letters, take naps and have a dance class.

On the weekend, we took a drive up the coast to the seaside town of Ventura and stayed overnight at a hotel. We had adjoining rooms and Ella stayed in her Oma's room. The best part of it for the kids was the room-to-room telephone, a game they played for ages. The weather was too cool to go to the beach but there was a nice park across the street from our hotel which we went to several times in the short time we were there.




In the evening, we had dinner at Cholada Thai restaurant.
The following day, we stopped in at the Mission San Buenaventura, walked past the former site of Ventura's Chinatown, had lunch at a 50's style diner and then did actually go to the beach for a little while.

On the last day before Oma left, we celebrated Felix's birthday at his preschool, complete with his requested Spider-Man bouncy-castle/jumper/bounce house and Spider-Man cake which I cleverly decorated myself. He didn't even notice the clown frosting, only the Spider-Mans and web decoration.


On the morning before Oma left, Felix got to open his presents (Spider-Man shirt and his own copy of "Frog", his favorite library book). While I took Ella to Dutch school, Jim and Felix took Oma to the airport where they said a tearful farewell.



Until next time!

Dag Sinterklaasje, dag, dag!

First a photo of the kids with their Granny in Palm Desert during Thanksgiving weekend. Granny made her famous Snoopy cake.

The next exciting thing that happened is Sinterklaas came to Los Angeles. He brought Ella what she wanted - a pink umbrella (although it was Hello Kitty, not Princess) and Felix got a Spider-Man toy (Spider-Man riding an ATV). Sint and the Pieten came to the big party that was organized by the Dutch school, and the kids loved it. Although Ella won't go anywhere near Santa Claus never mind talk to or even look at him, she was happy to shake Sinterklaas's hand and talk to him.


(Yes, I will eventually get around to posting the rest of Oma's visit but these 2 posts will have to do for now; the video below took pretty much all day to upload).

Felix on a bike

All of a sudden, Felix can ride his tricycle. I suppose he must have been practicing at school because at home, he always used to push himself along with his feet on the ground. Now he pedals fast and steers straight (quite a difficult thing to master in conjunction with the pedaling). Off he goes, on the sidewalk around the cul-de-sac! (This was mid-November when the weather was still nice).

A visit from Mom - Part 1: Birthday Party

In honor of the kids' birthdays, my mom ("Oma" to Ella & Felix) came to visit us for a couple of weeks. It went by so fast but we did manage to get "just a few" pictures to document the occasion. The very first day was Ella's birthday; after Dutch school in the morning, they went to the mall together to pick out a new birthday outfit. Ella also got a couple of pretty necklaces. For Ella's birthday dinner, she chose to go to Crazy Tokyo Sushi.

The following day was THE PARTY!

(click on pictures to see them bigger)

Felix's friends Liam, Daniel, Charlie and Will came, as did Ella's friends Emma, Molly, Mia, Kate, Syrena and Zachary. The special guests, Reptacular Animals, were a huge hit with the kids and adults alike. Ella's favorite was this, a little kingsnake:

Felix liked the chinchilla and the iguana:

The rest of the special guests were an Emperor scorpion, a big fat African Bullfrog, a yellow finch, a white dove, a gray bunny, a boa, a monitor lizard and a desert tortoise (who enjoyed munching on the grass in our yard).

The other WOW moment was the rainbow cake, made by my friend Nathalie. Molly's brother who doesn't even eat cake exclaimed, "This is the best cake I've had in my life!" (as a 6-yr-old, you can imagine he'd had his share of cake in his lifetime). High praise indeed.

One last picture of the special day; Ella's Back-To-School picnic was the same day as the party, so after everyone left, and we cleaned up, we headed over there for a little while. Here's Ella with her name on the school marquee which was up for the whole month of October:

Happy Birthday and Happy Halloween

Happy Birthday to Nicki!



Don't be angry, it's Halloween. Happy Halloween to everyone!

This year Ella is going as Minnie Mouse and Felix as Superman.

Happy 3rd Birthday Felix!

Today our beautiful son Felix Dashiell Vincent Dennis is three years old. He is no longer a little baby, no longer a toddler. Here is is at 10 days old as a curious baby, and 3 years later as a funny, silly boy.



Felix just LOVES his backyard swing and climbs like a monkey. He's impressed me so much lately with his long and complete sentences eg. Wednesday morning he said "Daddy and Felix will wait for Maria" and "When I get to school, could I wear my Spider-Man shoes?" His Oma said to him, "Come on, fella" to which he replied, "I'm not Fella, I'm Felix." He already had a shared birthday party with Ella a couple of weeks ago and yesterday we celebrated at pre-school with a Spider-Man jumper and cake.

Happy 6th Birthday Ella

Today is the day that Ella has been waiting for for years... today Ella is 6 years old! It was six years ago that Ella was born, one month early, tiny and cute.

Three years later, she was a funny, smart and silly preschooler...

And now she is a First Grader!


The long-awaited and oft-requested bunny has not yet joined our family but since it's been so anticipated, it may happen within the next few months. We have a busy weekend planned, and are very happy to have Ella's beloved and loving Oma here with us to celebrate.

Our Family Vacation

We went on vacation to Lake Arrowhead area at the end of June. We stayed at the quaint Pine Rose Cabins about 5 miles away, in the town of Twin Peaks. I posted all the photos that I took on our Shutterfly site: www.Shutterfly.com but there are things that I didn't take pictures of, like: our cabin www.PineRose.com, grilling veggie dogs & corn on the deck, hiking, and Ella swimming in the pool. She went in every day, going from us having to hold on to her very tightly, to being able to kick around holding on to a board all by herself at the end of the week.

Otto

(taken on my new camera-phone, not bad!)
So - we found homes for all five of the kittens we discovered, four in other people's homes (two each) and one in ours. We kept Otto, the white one with black spots (polka-dotted, according to Ella). He's quite a character, very vocal and pretty friendly. He also eats two breakfasts and two dinners every day (he's a growing boy) and he likes people-food like yogurt, pinto beans and corn on the cob:



He is still small enough for Ella to tote him around, but I expect he will be quite a hefty one when he grows up, considering his appetite.



Eying the kids' crepes on Bastille Day:




MamaRose, Otto's mother, who still comes around miaowing for her babies and waiting to be fed:

Ella's New Bike

Ella got her first real bike, and she loves it. Here she is riding at the special bike track at Encino Park near her school:

Happy Fortieth, Funky

Felix's new bedtime routine: drinks his "hot" (actually tepid) milk and asks to listen to "Blue Skies smiling at me nothing but blue skies do I see" (Willie Nelson) on my iPod.

Felix's new trick: go pee-pee standing up into the big toilet. So funny!!!

Ella's new thing: Being more adventurous with food. Current new favorites are buying her own school lunch a few days a week, and she loves pink grapefruit after trying them fresh from Granny's tree with sugar sprinkled on top.

Only one more week of school for Ella then she's done with her first year at elementary school, all done with Kindergarten. She is going to be in First Grade with a new teacher and different kids (some the same); on Friday we get to find out who her new teacher and where her new classroom is going to be... exciting! Ella was one of the Students of the Month - here she is showing Gabriela the certificate (click on all the pictures to see them bigger).


Amelia, Ella, Yuliana, Gabriela

Ella doing her homework in the beautiful brand new school library

Ella and Felix off to school

She's also done with Dutch school for the summer and will be returning to Groep 2 and Juf Iris in September. They ended the school year last week with a very fun speur-tocht (treasure hunt).

Felix has been taking "dance class" at his preschool with Miss Katie every Thursday. They had an end of semester show with the theme "A Walk Through The Jungle".



The first venture into kitten fostering is almost at an end. A coworker of mine is adopting Charlie and Loki henceforth known as Bhodi and Bub. Her good friends are adopting Tamago and Fez henceforth known as Olivia and Jack Bauer. It's very exciting for all of them as it's their first experience as pet-parents. I am enjoying the last few days of the pitter-patter of tiny paws racing around the house and then we'll be left with Otto, a companion and playmate for Byron and Toots (both of whom are not too enamored or amused with these babies). As I write, Tamago, Fez and Otto are curled up together on my lap. They must be going through a growth spurt or something as they ate two breakfasts and two dinners today!

Tamago and Otto

Charlie

Otto and Tamago

The Sunday after school ends, we leave for our one-week vacation, our first in 3 years and our first as a family of four. We've been on trips before, visiting family and such, but nothing with just the four of us, just hanging out together without any obligations. We've reserved a cute little cabin near Lake Arrowhead, which is not too far of a drive for us.