Costumes

We bought the kids some new dress up clothes the other day. Dylan is quick as lightening, Dash from the incredibles. He loves running around the house to show us how fast he can run. (And he really is very fast). Elizabeth is Tinkerbell. She loves fluttering around the house with her little wings on.

Dora Jammies

Elizabeth is obsessed with her Dora jammies. If we let her, she'd wear them 24/7. As it is, as soon as we come home, she runs to her room to put them on. Needless to say, sneaking these pjs away from her to clean them was a covert operation worthy of a top CIA agent. I was finally successful at getting them away from her for a good washing. She couldn't wait for them to be clean.

Here's a picture of her waiting by the dryer while her Dora pjs dry. You can also see Dylan in the background, lending his moral support.

Dylan offered a little bit of comic relief while we waited.

Finally, freshly laundered pjs:

Ahh, back to normal...

My Little Girl Turns 1!!

I can't believe it's been a year since I had Patricia. It's been a busy year, full of moves and new adjustments. It makes it difficult to sit back and take notice of the little changes that happen in a person so young. Nonetheless we are amazed at the things that she can accomplish already. She's not quite walking but can stand all by herself. She also hasn't met a set of stairs that she doesn't like. She feeds herself, sometimes even uses a spoon. Although those are the messiest feedings. She LOVES to scream. We thought that Elizabeth was a screamer. She's a whisperer compared to her sister. Not only is her scream loud, but it's also a shrill. Eric and I are scared of what's to come.

All kidding aside, she's a total love. Eric and I feel blessed to have another child who is so lovely is so many ways. She brings a great deal of joy and satisfaction to our lives.

We celebrated her birthday twice. Once with my parents, when they were visiting for Christmas.

And another a few days after her actual birthday. The second time around, Dylan and Elizabeth helped me bake the cup cakes. They were so proud to bake for their sister.

Lubeck, Germany

Last weekend, we packed up the kids and took them to Lubeck, Germany for a Christmas market. We had a great time. Lubeck is a beautiful medieval city in the northern part of the country. They have one of the best Christmas markets in Germany. We spent our time shopping for Christmas decorations, eating yummy sausages and sweet treats. Of course, when you're travelling with three kids, you can't do that much sight seeing. So we also spent much of our time going to parks and taking advantage of the amusement rides at the market.

The medieval gate at the Lubeck entrance:

Enjoying some tubby time at the hotel.

The kids do like to travel. Dylan informed us that he likes staying in hotels. Elizabeth kept saying that she missed the hotel after we had left. I wonder if they'll be bored with their life when we finally move back to the states...

Karate

We've signed Dylan up for a Karate class. He goes every Saturday. It's in Danish, although the instructor will speak English if need be. She tells us that she needs to use less and less English with him as time goes by. He has also learned how to count in Japanese.

Busy little night owl

It takes Elizabeth a very long time to settle down at night. We usually put her to bed around 8:00. However she does not fall asleep until at least 8:30. On this particular night, she found my makeup bag in the bathroom, took it back to her bedroom and went to town trying on makeup. This is how we found her. We also found a large glass of water balancing on a book that was laying on her bed. I can't believe it didn't tip over. She's such a flopper. Eric and I are not sure how she sleeps in her bed at all. It's filled with books, her lunch bag (seen to the right in the picture), her back pack and the toy of the day. She's too funny!

Halloween

I haven't had a chance to update the blog much lately. It's difficult to get much done when you go to bed at 8:30. We've spent the last few weeks fighting colds, which is compounded by the fact that Tricia is teething and not sleeping much at night these days. Poor thing is getting quite a few teeth in all at once. Needless to say, I've been tired a lot lately.

We were able to celebrate Halloween here in Denmark. The international school sponsored a trick-or-treating night. I was even on the planning commity. We picked a neighborhood that had a lot of expats on it. Then we went door to door and asked people to volunteer to hand out candy to the little ones. We supplied the candy and the balloons and even carved pumpkins for the front door steps. It was a huge success. We sold over 200 tickets. Can you imagine 200+ kids crowded onto one street for trick-or-treating? It was a mob scene. We had a great time nonetheless.

I hosted a pre-trick-or-treating dinner at my house. I invited a few families from Dylan's class over. Here's a picture of the bunch. Dylan is in a great class. All of the kids get along really well, and so do the parents!

You'll notice that Dylan is not in the picture. He was inside with me arguing about the fact that he did not want to go as a knight, as we had planned. At the last minute he changed his mind and wanted to go as a pirate. Things were so busy that night that I never got a chance to get a good picture of Dylan in his costume. We'll have to make up for that next year.

After dinner, we headed out for some trick-or-treating fun. We had a great time. 15 houses, volunteered to hand out candy. Eric informed me that he used to do 200 houses back in his prime. But 15 houses was just enough for my young trio.

My little lady bug:

My little princess:

Carving Pumpkins

In preparation for Halloween, we decided to carve some pumpkins the other day. The kids were pretty creative this year.

Dylan started out wanting a cyclopes pumpkin, but then changed his mind after I cut out the eye. His pumpkin looks a little deranged. He said he thinks it looks scary, a look he was going for.

Elizabeth is wearing new princess costume and shoes:

It was Dylan's idea to take a family picture. We gave it a "shot".

It almost worked. Unfortunately, the girls were really tired and not in the mood for pictures anymore.

Legoland

We took the kids to Legoland over the weekend. It's a Danish amusement park with a lego theme. We stayed one night in a pirate room at the Legoland hotel. Fun! We had a blast. The park is on the small side and perfect for young kids. We ate junk food, went on a few rides and saw lots of interesting lego sculptures. We had a blast.

Eaten by a shark...

Here's Dylan with Tom and Jerry. He's getting to be such a smartie pants. He knows that there are people under those costumes. After he posed with them he turned to me and said, "Wouldn't it be a nice surprise if that were grandma and grandpa under those costumes". So sweet. How long will it be before he realizes there's no Santa?? Elizabeth is not so knowledgeable yet. She wouldn't pose with them. She was too scared.

Here's a picture of the kids taken from our pirate room

Dylan's self portrait

The teachers had the kids paint a self portrait in school the other day. Dylan painted this all by himself:

I think it kind of resembles him. Don't you??

Some cute pics of Tricia

I was testing out our new camera the other day. Tricia was my subject. I was able to snap some really cute pictures of her playing under the desk.

Sunglasses

I tried to get some pics of the girls with their sun glasses on. Tricia wasn't in the mood to cooperate. I snapped some cute pictures nonetheless.

I finally just gave up at trying to get a picture of both girls wearing the glasses

Not sharing

Elizabeth does not like to share her toys with her sister. She puts her toys on the couch so that Patricia can't reach them. She'll be in trouble once Tricia can get up there.

Tricia doesn't know any better yet. She's still just happy as a clam.

Getting Ready for Halloween

Eric was in the US last week and brought back some Halloween costumes and treats. He also brought back a new digital camera. We're officially back in the picture taking business.

Spider man

Spider woman

Enjoying some lolly pops

Smelling Ice cream

I think I've mentioned that the ice cream here is really yummy. I'm not sure what the Danes do to make it taste so good but we sure do enjoy it. I took the kids out for some ice cream today after dinner. I got Dylan and Elizabeth strawberry ice cream and a cookies and cream concoction for myself. When I asked Dylan if I could try a scoop of his ice cream, he told me no but I could smell it if I'd like! So there you go. My son was only generous enough to give me a smell. He was not about to give up an once of this little treat. Luckily Elizabeth didn't finish her bowl so I was able to try a scoop (or two or three) of hers.

On another ice cream note, when I was on my way to the international school the other day I passed by a stand that sells soft ice cream. There were a bunch of kids standing outside of it eating ice cream cones. One kid had the biggest ice cream cone I have ever seen. He must have had at least 3 cups of ice cream oozing over his waffle cone. He looked like he was loving every minute of it.

Catching up

It's been a long time since I've entered a blog entry. Life has been quite busy with three little ones. Between taking care of the kids, cooking and cleaning, my days go by so quickly. Additionally, the girls and I find ourselves busy doing things through the international school while Dylan is in school during the day. We do plenty of play dates and shopping sprees and just plain hanging out. I love getting this quality time in with the girls. Elizabeth is so easy going and independent. She's turning into a little lady right before my eyes.

She loves playing with her purses and reading books. In fact, she carries a rather large pile of books around the house with her during the day. I swear, the books weigh as much as she does. Patricia is really doing a lot lately as well. She says mama and dada. She is a very fast crawler and just today started kneeling on her own. I think that she'll probably start the cruising thing very soon. I can already see that she wants to do the same things that the other two do. She doesn't really let me feed her right now. She grabs the spoon out of my hand when I try to feed her. If I give her her own spoon, she just drops the one she has, grabs the spoon from my hand and shoves it in her own mouth. Little miss independence.

Denmark is treating us well so far. The weather hasn't been that bad. Dylan has a 1 week break next month. We are mulling around the idea of taking the kids to either Legoland or to an indoor water amusement park in the southern part of the country. Both options sound so fun that we're having a difficult time deciding.

Unfortunately our camera has died once again. I don't have any pics to post. Eric's in the states right now. Hopefully he'll be able to get a camera that's a bit more reliable.

It's late and time to go. Hopefully I'll have more time to update this site in the weeks to come.

Dylan turns 4

It's hard to believe that my sweet little boy was born 4 short years ago. Time has really flown. We've had so many changes in the last four years. When Dylan was born we were living in our condo in South Boston. When he was 8 months old we sold the condo and made the big move out to the burbs. We were/are so proud to own that house. We were lucky enough to land a nice house on a quiet street in a great neighborhood. We thought that we'd spend at least 20 years in that house. Then, just over a year later, we moved to Amsterdam and now we're in Copenhagen. Thinking about this amount of transition makes my head spin. I'm sure it does a number on the kids as well.

Of course I'm probably being a bit overly dramatic since the kids are doing great and we had a wonderful time celebrating Dylan's birthday the other day. We started out by celebrating at school first. I made some cookies and we brought them into school so that Dylan could share a birthday treat with his classmates.

It was very sweet. They all sang happy birthday to him. Then everyone drew a picture and the teacher posted them all into Dylan's birthday book.

Later that day, we shared a special birthday dinner of fish sticks, roasted potatoes and salad (all requested by Dylan). Afterwards we enjoyed some delicious birthday cake.

Of course, Dylan was very excited to receive presents. The girls got him a new football. Eric and I bought him a remote control car, a new transformer and some clothes for school. He was very excited about the car. Although it is already broken. It lasted 24 hours. I guess we should have headed the warning on the box and waited until he turned 5 to give it to him. Lesson learned!!

I'm so excited to watch my little guy grow up. He is a bright, energetic, caring little boy who loves to catch frogs and play with Legos. He is maturing in ways that amaze me each day. I'm proud to have him as my son!

Silly Elizabeth

Elizabeth loves to walk around with a bucket on her head. The other day I came into the kitchen to find her rummaging through the refrigerator with a bucket on her head and wearing sun glasses. She cracks me up.

Jolly jumper

Here's some pics of my little Patricia enjoying some jumping time in her jolly jumper.

Look at those fat roles!! Love those legs. She's such a happy, sweet, good baby. We're so lucky!