nutella!

Sometimes a bib is really necessary... this time a balaclava may have been better.

van mij!! (mine!!)

Dylan has got very possesive and can often be found hugging something to his chest saying mine, mine, mine! Here he is with 'my' rugby ball, ' not yours mama'.
My best happens after swimming. While I'm getting dressed, he gets a juice and a biscuit. He glares at whoever is nearest him and proclaims 'van mij, niet van jou!' (mine, not yours!) until he gets their attention, then he repeats it again, louder. He doesn't take his (evil) eye off the poor child until he is finished.

plu-pla kaartjes

When you spend 10 euros on groceries at our local supermarket (Albert Heijn) you get a pack of 5 football cards, the idea being to collect all of them and fill the book for this season's teams. We call them voetbal kaartjes (football cards), Dylan calls them plu-pla kaartjes or plakplaatjes (stickers). He unashamedly begs for them everytime we get to the cashier and he generally gets away with 3 packs or so which is certainly helping along his (ok, Marko's) collection!

don't ask

And then one day Dylan decided to balance Schaapie on his head...

...mission accomplished!

happy birthday to yooooooou!

Dylan was totally spoilt on his second birthday, the party lasted for 3 days! He loved every second of opening presents, singing happy birthday, playing with everyone who visited and of course, eating cake, biscuits, cake and more biscuits! (more photos in the 3 blogs below...) The little monkey now weighs 12.4kgs and is 88cm tall!

To add to the fun, Martin, Faye and Nicholas came to stay for the weekend. Pity we don't get to see them more often.

party, party, party!

The party was on Saturday afternoon. Dylan, Nicholas, Joost, Manon and Lisa had heaps of fun, along with Rosalie, Rodney and the rest of our family and friends who could make it.

pre-party

Sven couldn't make it to the party so he came to play on Friday afternoon. It was great fun watching the boys run around like crazy but I must confess that I am quite relieved I didn't have triplets!

the start of Dylan's 2nd-birthday celebrations!

On Wednesday I charged the camera battery and then managed to put it back in the wrong way... this means no pictures from his party at school on Thursday morning. Thursday evevning, oma and opa came for dinner.

happy birthday papa!

Dylan loves birthdays, who doesn't!? The fact that it was papa's and not his didn't make opening presents, playing with 'blabloons' or eating cakes any less fun. In fact the sight of 'cakies' makes him jump up and down with glee.and what about a cake for papa?oh ja...and a nice crumby birthday kiss!

a day at the Zoo

Early januari, we went to the Rotterdam Zoo (Blijdorp) and Dylan loved it. He was running all over the place checking out the fish, sharks, polar bears... we forgot to take lots of photos, but here are some.

Here's us checking out the baby giraf, only a day old and already tall!

the girafs had to stay indoors, it was too cold for the newborn!

afterwards we went to the elephants, they just started walking outside as we got to their warm house.

Look papa, there they are!

and here we are outside
he was very impressed by the hippos... a mama and a baby! i hope he realised they weren't real?

say cheese!

Smile Dylan,

no really, I said smile...

...ok, I meant smile nicely for the camera so mama can remind everyone just how gorgeous you are,

thats it!

puddles

It's warmed up slightly which sadly means gray skies and rain. Not all bad, the puddles are a good enough reason to get out the wellies!

Winter in Rotterdam

It's winter in the Netherlands. Temperatures are well below zero at night and have been for a couple of weeks now. This means all lakes, rivers and canals are frozen and the whole of Holland is going crazy with ice skating. Dylan and I went to the Kralingse Bos to walk on the ice and play in the snow on the big lake. The last time the lake was completely frozen is about 12 years ago... so this is very special! Ofcourse we had to make snow ballsand we were looking at the skaters going pastthis last photo is from the 2 windmills next to the lake, can't get more dutch then this!

I thought I'd add a photo from a couple of months ago (16/08/08) just to show the difference!

Christmas with a difference

No photos of Christmas trees or hats or lights or presents, just a smiling Dylan and lots of snow, snow and more snow.

And of course Christmas dinner, carols and a little relaxing in the jacuzzi.