Stay-cation

The second week of the boys' Easter break, i had the week off. Yippee! We did a stay-cation, (staying home during your vacation) because of the age-old problem of being broke.
Luckily the weather has been unlikely warm for Belgium, so we are truly enjoying ourselves. It would have been a perfect week for the beach, but alas.

On Monday the boys played dress up,





and after that we just lazed around in the yard....



On Tuesday we went to the park for a little while, where Stoney climbed a tree (i tell you that kid is a monkey) even though the park maintenance has cut down the lower branches to discourage kids from climbing in it. (the lowest branch is probably six feet high but he still manages to get in there)







In the afternoon we went to the indoor pool. Shame of the beautiful weather, but the only outdoor pool in town does not open till May 1st - a real bummer because Murphy's law tell us that if we have a beautiful spring it will a cold and rainy summer - so who knows if we will ever make it to the outdoor pool this year.
At the pool, Stoney discovered the high diving board - for which i have never gotten the courage to jump off - and he jumped off about 50 times...

On Wednesday we had Stoney's birthday party. I know, his birthday was 4 months ago, but he wanted to hold his B-party in the park so we choose to wait for better weather.
Stoney does not like cake - of any kind - so we put some candles in waffles instead. He loves waffles.





After that we went to the park. It was hot an popsicles were a must.



I must say, i was quite happy that not all the invited kids turned up. They were giving me a headache as it was. All this pushing, wrestling... On the way to the park we came by a small pond. One kid decided to take his shoes and socks off and walk through it. We also came past a corn field, except it has no corn in it at the moment and it's just dirt. Several of Stoney's friends decided to throw dirt at each other... Oh, eight and nine year old boys...


On Thursday we took it easy and made some crafts. I tried to get the boys intrested in some Easter crafts, but no, they wanted to make castles. So we took some empty boxes (in which some of our stuff was shipped to Europe) and made castles. Stoney's castle was supposed to be gray, but we ran out of gray paint and he made the rest brown. Monty's castle is flaming red, orange, blue and green.



On Friday the boys went to the church building with Leland and the missionaries to do some yard work, or that is... they did for a while and after that they just "supervised" from the window.



In the afternoon we did the yearly painting of Easter eggs.






On Saturday there was a primary activity, on Sunday we went to church and then had our easter egg hunt, but i didn't take pictures.

On Monday we were still off of school and work because it was "second Easter day" and that is a bank holiday so everyone is off. It was to freaking hot to do anything, so we just lazed around in the yard. Except Monty who had a burst of energy and wanted to work on "getting strong muscles"

vacation with Oma and Opa

The boys have a two weeks Easter break. One week, last week, the spend with Oma and Opa, who of course spoiled them by taking them all kinds of fun places.

They went to miniature Netherlands.

They have been there once before when Stoney was three and Monty just barely one, but they didn't remember. I do remember that when Stoney was three, he was rather angry that he was not allowed to play with any of the miniature cars and trains. On this occasion the cars and trains were still pretty tempting, and evidently the boys did races trying to keep up with the moving trains and cars...



They also went to a gigantic playground....





They also went to the pool (indoors) and an indoor playground, but there are no pictures of those.
They also spend some time with their cousin Thijmen.


So all in all they had a great week. One more week of easter vacation to go and this week, i have time off from work, so.... yeah!

Spring....!

We have been enjoying some beautiful spring weather. last week we got our first sun burn.
Since this is Belgium, there is no telling how long it will last so we are living it up.









We went on a pedal boat ride, and as soon as we were in the middle of the lake, someone of course had to pee...





And who did most of the pedaling? Not the little boys who wanted to go in the pedal boat, I can tell you that



And look at the beautiful flowers at our church building (arranged by Leland)

Monty-man

This is Monty, or Monty-man as we often call him. Isn't he cute?




Well, this sweet little boy is not nearly as sweet as you'd think. Of course, he CAN be very sweet, he is creative, loving, can be very funny, and I do love him with all my heart, but he is a difficult child.
He was always difficult as a matter of fact, from the moment he was born a month early. The day we took him home from the hospital he started screaming bloody murder - he had colic, he had acid reflux, he was lactose intolerant... He screamed and screamed and only relaxed some if you held him. Probably because of that it took him years to learn to sleep in his own bed. Where other kids just scream for a while when you put them in their bed by themselves for the first time, and then get the message within a day or two, that never worked for Monty. He screamed for hours on end till he got himself worked up in such hysterics that he seemed to be choking. Years and years of working on getting him to go to sleep on his own.
And then don't even get me started on the potty-traning stories, which could easily fill various books.
Now that he is six, almost seven, it is getting more obvious that he is just a little different. He frequently comes home from school saying that other kids were mean to him, and that he doesn't have any friends. But then when you ask the teacher, or when i see him play with other kids, he seems like just any other kid with tons of friends. But evidently his perception is that everyone is mean to him.
When we go to school in the morning, he always wants to park his bike directly next to Stoney's bike. But usually Stoney gets there a few minutes earlier, because Monty is just slow in a lot of things, and another child has already parked their bike next to Stoney's. And every morning Monty has a meltdown, because someone took "his" spot. And life is not fair because he wanted to park his bike at that spot.
The same when he hangs his coat up at school, he wants a specific spot and it has to be that spot.

And then the temper tantrums... oh the temper tantrums...

And then there is the fact of his school work. His 1st grade teacher has done a lot of complaining about him. She said: "in all my years of teaching i have never seen a child that cannot be motivated by any form of reward or punishment."
Other then Stoney, who will do just about anything for a bribe, Monty is not sensetive to that at all. "You don't get desert if you don't make your homework." And he shakes his head and says: "Nah, i don't want desert." We have occasions where we worked with him for an hour to get twenty simple math problems done, whereas the next day he did twenty more problems in seven minutes. When he doesn't want to do something, he just doesn't want to do something.

Another comment in his most recent report card. "Even though he is always last to finish his work, he does seem to understand all the things being taught, which is surprising, since he never seems to pay any attention."
There is a pediatric service attached to the school and one of the doctors is going to do some test with him to see if there is something that they can diagnose. Maybe he has some behavior disorder. But then again, maybe he is just the way he is. He is just Monty.



Oh Monty... on n'est pas sortie de l'auberge.... Either way, I am sure there will be many more years of interesting and challenging moments to come.

Nothing to say

It was high time to take the Christmas tree down i still had up on the blog. Unfortunately i must say that i do not have anything fun or interesting to say tonight. So i am going with a brief synopsis of the past two months, as in, things most frequently heard in our house.

• Put your boots on.
• Do you have homework?
• I don't want to go to school today
• I am thirsty for milk
• I don't want to go to bed
• Why are you yelling? You are sitting right next to me
• Monty did it
• Stoney did it
• I don't want to get dressed
• Where are your mittens?
• I don't want to go kaka
• It is time to get up boys
• focus on your homework please!
• I don't want to eat potatoes
• Your bike is the last to get out Monty, just like every other day
• I am scared mommy, can I sleep in your bed?
• I don't want to go to bed
• Who's turn is it to say the prayer?

And also in the category of things heard most in our house:
I love you!

I am dreaming of a white Christmas...

And sometimes dreams come true! Whoop-di-doo!
It had been snowing all week but we got a ton of snow on the 24th. The boys still had half day of school that day, and they were not lucky enough that it got canceled. No buses rode that day and most people just stayed home. 8 to 10 inches is no laughingstock for a country that own about two snow plows. LOL.


I came home from bringing the boys to school (because my office was closed, snicker, snicker) and thought: why is it so dark in the living room? Well, because the sky light was covered in snow.


I'd like to say that we had a very peaceful and nice Christmas, but unfortunately there was an awful lot of "it is my turn to open a present!" "Monty won't show me what he's got!" "It's not fair, he got two in a row."
After all that, moments we are going to treasure for years to come i am sure, we took pictures.

The boys, and Leland, got ninja warrior headbands from Grandma and Grandpa, which went well with the bows and arrows they got from us. Stoney is actually happy in this picture, this is just his "i am cool look"



(there has been a lot of "watch out, there is an arrow coming")


The big present they got for Christmas was this fancy-smency loop-di-loop race track. Santa got it second hand from some people at church, but the kids don't need to know that :-) As to be expected with a track like this, cars were crashing left and right. But they had a great time




Inevitable there comes a point on Christmas day that the kids need to blow of steam and get out of the house, and since he had all this snow outside anyway...


We came across strange messages in the snow.

And a gigantic Christmas tree


Monty was being a crouch and insisted on carrying these big chunks of snow everywhere.


Stoney had a lot of fun though. But after several crashes we went home.

winter

Happy birthday to Stoney, no he is not high, he is just into making silly faces lately.







We have an unusual amount of snow for Belgium. The country is running out of salt already, and winter is just starting. We got about 7 inches I guess. The boys went to school by sled the other day. (occasionally even we give up on riding a bicycle). No delayed openings here, let alone school closings, no matter how much snow there falls, school opens as scheduled.



Not in a chatty mood tonight, so i am just posting some winter pictures.