bed time

The floor of the lounge was not quite what I had in mind!

Sinterklaas visits school

The nervous boys, waiting for Sinterklaas to arrive!

 There he is!

 With the Pepernoten Piet of course!

 Dylan proudly showing off the Zwarte Piet hat he made himself.

Sinterklaas also visited the creche but seeing the man in his classroom was a bit too much for Travis. He sat under the table and ate pepernoten until the Sint and the Pieten left. No photos...

And that was that! I am quite pleased it's over. It's heaps of fun, but 3 weeks of nervous and excited boys is exhausting.

bags full of presents

We celebrated Pakjesavond at Sander and Wendy's this year, had loads of fun, ate excellent chilli, drank wine with great company and of course, got very spoilt! What's not to like about Sinterklaas?

Can anyone see the Pieten?

 The first bag...

 and the first present is for... Dylan!

 Is there one for me, Sander?

 Ja, ja, jaaaaa!

 What else is in there? Is it empty? Not yet I hope!

 The unpacking frenzy continues.

Time to play, Thanks Sinterklaas!

zwarte piet ging uit fietsen...

Pieten

Sinterklaas

It's that time of the year again and Sinterklaas is back in Holland. We watch the Sinterklaasjournaal every night to keep up to date with the happenings leading up to Pakjesavond.

We went to watch him arrive on his steamboat, (along with the rest of Rotterdam!)

We sang and danced with Disco Piet!

Dylan even got to shake hands with the man himself, after his Sinterklaas party at NN.

Because we have no chimney, we leave our shoes at the door to the balcony, this time with a carrot for the horse and Dylan's wish list.

Time to sing, as loudly as we can, in the hope that we will be heard by the Pieten. Travis thought this was all great fun and marched around Dylan and Papa singing along merrily.

Surprise! A (shoe)present and pepernoten! (The 5th shoe belongs to Pam.)

Travis gets more excited about the pepernoten and sweets then he does about the present.

Ok, we might have done all of this more than once so far...

 

Hey, that's for Amerigo!

Zie ginds komt de stoomboot...

autumn

Kralingseplas is a great place to wander around, whatever the season. We had a lovely time last week  but I gave up trying to take photos after the first 15 minutes. This time around Travis was keen. So keen that he sat down in the pathway every few minutes and smiled nicely, saying: 'photo, photo, cheeeeeese.' Dylan decided he would pose...