Lia Bear

I think I was hanging out with Lia on this day while the rest of the family was at David's football game.  I remember she was playing all by herself and having such a great time dancing that I wanted to get a little video.  Unfortunately, I was unable to sneak up on her and take it.  When she saw the camera, she wanted me to take a picture and not a video.  I took the video anyway.  :-)

At the end of October, we got a little cool weather and had fun digging through Emily's old clothes and hand-me-downs.  I was happy to find a pair of Emily's old jeans and we both loved Emma's polka dot shirt with it.  It is fun to be a girl!

Happy 6th Birthday David!

We decorated David's cake right before his party.  Our annual tradition has been to celebrate his birthday at a local park that has live music on Sundays in the fall.  This year we were joined by his Grandparents, Godparents and buddy McCoy and his family.  Now the cake itself was a beautiful red on the inside.  The icing however, was more difficult than I realized to dye red.  Apparently, you need a TON of red food coloring to get to a nice red color.  David was not too happy with the pink result of the red food coloring and the white icing... so he decided to add a little yellow and go for an orange hue.  The result wasn't exactly pink... or orange... but it was pleasing enough to David so we stopped there.  I would like to think it had a burnt orange look about it.  ;-)

Here is David with his Samurai castle from his Grandparents.  Yes, he was very happy with this gift!  The hand at the bottom of the picture was Emily's.  She was happy with this gift too and had a difficult time keeping her hands off of it!

And the Happy Birthday Video:

David's Birthday Cake

Here is a scene of very important work.  David requested a red cake with red frosting for his birthday.  I thought the easiest way to accomplish the "red cake" part would be to make a Red Velvet cake mix.  I didn't realize just how red the batter would be and this is the reason why my son is not wearing a shirt.  I knew the birthday boy would want to excercise his birthday right to lick the bowl while the cake was baking.  And I knew my boy would not be neat and tidy about this privilege!  So yes, there should be a picture of David with red cake batter all over his face, and his chest, and his arms... but really I was too busy cleaning up the mess and I was also a little grossed out that he looked like he had blood all over his face.  That batter is something else! 

Health and Science Museum (Oct 13)

We usually ditch school to celebrate a birthday... The kids think this is great but I don't think they have caught on to the fact that when we visit a museum we are still learning!  At Classical Conversations, they have been learning human anatomy each week.  They are in the process of making a life-sized model of themselves with all their organs... pictures to come!  That in mind, I thought a visit to the Health and Science Museum would be a good fit.  Lucky for me, Thursday is their free day for families.  Even better, due to the academic nature of the museum, there were only a few other families there!  As an aside... I will NEVER go to the free day at the Children's museum again.  I am flashing back to the hundreds of people waiting to get into the museum at the direction of a man with a bullhorn!  Anyway, there was hardly anyone here so we had the run of the place!

In this area, there was a short (ultra-high speed) x-ray video of a baby's skull growing and changing as its baby teeth came in and were then pushed out by its permanent teeth.  This was fascinating to David and Emily who are currently going through this process!

I think it is hilarious that this giant mouth has a chipped tooth.  See anyone inside?

 Yes, that is my youngest... by the large brain.

There was also an exhibit of dressed up skeletons.  The one Lia wanted her picture taken with was supposed to be Cinderella.

In the lobby of the museum were a bunch of brain teaser games.  My kids wanted to spend the bulk of our time here.  We were able to solve Challenge 1... but had to take a picture to work on Challenge 2 at home.

We enjoyed this museum, especially since our admission was free!  The movie, Planet You, was too scary for Emily and we had to leave before it ended.  The movie was about the germs found on your body... and the super magnified images of lice and the like gave her the creeps.  It was pretty creepy but fascinating all the same to me.  It didn't bother David a bit, but he indulged his sister in leaving.  The reason we didn't go to the museum on David's actual birthday, (the 14th), was because it wasn't free on that day and because the kids had their small groups with our home school co-op on that day.  At Pickwick, Emily made a beautiful rosary and at Catholic Boys club, David learned about St. Francis of Assisi and made a wormery.  A wormery, if you were wondering, is big jar of sand and mud filled with worms.  If you took proper care of them, you could watch them make tunnels.  I say "If" because I wasn't paying attention when my children were in the back yard.  They thought the wormery needed to be muddier so they added more water and then they capped it.  Well... the worms all drowned or died for lack of oxygen... I'm not sure.  But the next day, they were floating in about 2 inches of water.  Eewww.  The other interesting thing was watching my boy grab for those worms.  He didn't think twice about grabbing them.  I mean really, he just reached right into the tub of worms like he was picking up a rubber band and thought nothing else about it.  Boys.

Home Again, Home Again!

I made it home and the kids were very happy that I came bearing gifts.  I got each of my girls an adorable miniature Delft pottery set.  It was a huge hit.

 Lia is serving tea to her kitty cat.

I struggled a bit with what to bring home for David... till I found this "Delft" patterned rubber duck for the bath.  And oh yes, it lights up in all the colors of the rainbow.  I asked him if he would have wanted a tea set... and he said, "Oh no, Mommy... I love this duck!"  Do you see the Netherlands flag?  Duck is holding it.

Good to be home!

Amsterdam, History Museum Day

Our last full day we decided to check out the history museum.  It is an ultra-modern museum with flat screen video displays you access with a DNA card to play in the correct language.  Of course it took me about 30 minutes to figure out how to use them... but that's just because I'm a little slow.  It is a great museum and I enjoyed learning about how the city was built on wood pilings and their evolution to concrete.  This 'I amsterdam' sculpture is a miniature version of the one in the Museum Plein. 

We also found time to ride the free ferry behind the train station across the canal to the North Side.  It is literally a 3 minute ride across the canal and when we were asking a local some questions, she was very confused as to why we would want to ride the ferry across and then just come back again.  Oh well... it was free.  And it was an adventure.  I had to take a picture of the bike garage.  The biking in Amsterdam is just a little insane.  I cannot imagine how you could remember where you left your bike and then find it again.

After our free ferry adventure, I was able to take a little self guided tour inside St. Nicholas Catholic Church.  It was spectacular.  Catholicism was banned in Amsterdam till the 1800s so there were no big churches like this one before that.  Amsterdam was tolerent thought and Catholics worshipped in secret... like in people's attics.  I didn't get to visit Amstelkring and the secret upstairs chapel (Our Dear Lord in the Attic) but would like to if I ever make it back.

This little lizard garden was near our hotel in Leidsplein.  I just thought it was cute.

And on our last night we were able to stop at a Croissanterie... a cute little French bakery and I ordered this adorable chocolate mousse boat with the Netherlands flag on it.  I had to take a picture before I ate it and I knew David would love the little flag so I saved it for him.

Amsterdam, Rijks Museum and Outdoor Market

My Mom and I utilized our time in Amsterdam very well.  We hit the "top tourist" destinations and walked the entire city center from all directions.  It has been a month since our trip so I realize I need to write about these things because the details are already getting hazy. 

Here is the high level:

Friday:  Arrival, Canal Orientation Tour 

Saturday:  Van Gogh Museum

Sunday:  Church and Anne Frank House

Monday:  Rijksmuseum, Outdoor Market

Tuesday:  History Museum

After my visit to the Rijksmuseum, I can now say with an air of snootiness... that absolutely nothing compares to seeing an original Rembrandt or Vermeer.  These paintings are amazing in person.  No reproduction can capture their beauty.   My favorites are below:

After the museum, we checked out the Albert Cuypmarkt... an outdoor market.  It was really neat to see cheese being sold outdoors.  We were able to score some delicious smoothies here too for about 1.5 Euro.

And a nice picture of me and my Mom exploring the city.