fun times

Last Saturday we went to have a barbecue with another family in our ward. They had so much food, I think i gained ten pounds right there!
This family has three boys, of which the oldest is Stoney's age and the youngest Monty's age. They just have one in between as well. This family lives about half an hour away from us, in the middle of nowhere, and have a huge yard. Obviously, the kids had a blast playing together.

This is Stoney and his friend Tristan. We are talking about having their baptisms on the same day, since they are only a couple of months apart.

Naturally, Stoney also felt the need to climb a tree.


I have two weeks of vacation now and we will be going with my parents to an island just north of the Dutch coast. It's a barrier island, like the Outer Banks in NC are. I hope our weather will be nice. Nothing like a beach vacation with rain and cold weather. We'll have to see.
Because this is just what life is like, right as we are going on vacation i have thrown my back out again and i am using heavy painkillers. I had a blessing on Saturday and hopefully that together with the meds will solve the problem soon :-)

Meanwhile, the lilies and sunflowers in our yard are finally blooming.

the rules of the game

Summer in Belgium is quite unpredictable. First we had two weeks of gorgeous weather with high seventees and no rain. It was quite enjoyable. Unfortuantely for the last week we have had pretty much 7 days of rain, not non-stop, but still. And the temperatures dropped to the low sixtees. Even though the boys have gone to their day camp every day this week and had a great time (coming home covered in mud, and with face paint in variations: Sponge Bob, Spiderman and Pirate) we have spend more time in side playing the old fashion board games. The problem however is that Monty is not that good at ... well, anyhthing. Maybe he is just not able to play these games yet, even though the box says: 5-99.
We constantly have to remind him of the rules of the game.

• You can only turn over two cards (memory)
• You can't turn it back around and pick a new one when you don't like your card (memory)
• You can only move your man one space (Chinese checkers)
• You don't get to roll the dice again when you get 1 (any game with dice)
• 2 and 3 doesn't make twelve (any game with dice)
• If someone kicks you off the board, you don't get to throw all other man of the board (sorry)

One way or the other, these games always end up with a temper tantrum of the little man, after which he just runs through the house yelling, screaming and sometimes kicking... Oh if he will only outgrow these temper tantrums over the next year or so.
And yet, he is so cute when he sleeps.

summer vacation

Well, the boys' summer vacation has started. Stoney got an excellnet report card with his highest grade in Dutch -which you wouldn't expect- and his lowest grade in PE -which you also wouldn't expect-. But of course we figured out that he didn't do well in PE because he doesn't follow instructions. "Wadda ye mean, I have to do a summer salt? I wanna pretend to be Kong-fu Panda!"
About Monty... Well, luckily kindergartners don't get report cards here. LOL. Although other then some behavior issues -see previous posts- he is not bad at school work. He is just very insecure. He always says that he can't do something and frequently has a meltdown before he'll finally attempt to do what the teacher asks him to do, and then what do you know, it turns out that he can do what she asked him to do just fine... Something tells me our problems with this little boy are far from over.



For the first couple of weeks of summer break the boys will go to a Day Camp for three or four days a week. I am at work of course and Leland has Dutch class in the morning most days. Besides, if they had only each other to play with for two months I am not sure the four of us would survive the summer.
They love the day camp - it's the same they went to last year. It's out by an old monestary in the forest and they have a great time. They come home - very tired - but also full of stories about games and friends they made. This day camp has their own busses that pick kids up and we live realy close to one of their stops. Best part is, it only cost $4 a day per kid. It's an absolute steel!!
So far, there have been no pooping issues on Monty's side at the Day Camp. Thank goodness. Fingers crossed, he'll behave himself for the rest of the summer. Or even better, for the rest of his life!

we present to you.... The Joust

This week in Lelandandanne-land...

This week in Lelandandanne-land:
Monty pooped on the school playground for the third time this month… This time he was kind enough to step in it after doing it.
I am beyond words about this affair. All I can say is that whenever I hear about Monty’s newest escapades, I hear the song in my head from the first Starwars, where Luke Skywalker and Obi-one are sitting in the cafe

Now to give a fair picture. It is not just Monty who is the one doing crazy things, he outstrips Stoney by about a mile on the crazy-odometer, but Stoney has his moments. Last week he picked a bunch of cherries from the cherry tree by their school and then stuffed them in his jeans pocket for safe keeping… Can’t believe the mess trying to clean that out.

Since I do a lot of complaining these days, it’s only fair to post some pictures of all the fun we are having as well.

tadpoles and frogs

In early May we decided we wante dto get some tadpoles and put them in a fish tank to see them transform into frogs. We did that with my family once or twice when I as young and I thought it was facsinating, so I thought my kids should have the same experience.
We live close to four big ponds and frankly, the concert that the frogs give there in Spring and Summer is quite impressive. We figured that there had to be tadpoles in the ponds and went hunting. However, it proved harder then we thought. We didn't see any tadpoles and once lost the bucket in the pond... A man walking his dog helped us fish the bucket out of the pond and suggested a smaller pond close by where he had seen tadpoles. But no dice.


But finally, a teacher at the boys' school gave us some tadpoles that she had in the pond in her backyard. We brought them home and put them in a fish tank and over the last six weeks they have transformed into little baby frogs.
This week the first three frogs that were fully developed we put back in the big ponds. For Stoney, sentimental soul that he is, it was an emotional goodbye.