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.