Because I’m trying to pretend like summer isn’t really gone, even though I brought out all the fall clothes this weekend, I made some frozen hot chocolate because we haven’t made it to Serendipity’s yet in NYC. Perhaps we can save our money now next time we visit, because it was yummy but definitely not hard to make and enjoy with a straw! The recipe made enough for all four of us.

Lately Celia has taken off like a rocket on her balance bike. Here’s her looking back at me in the park. She’s off and down the street, picking up her feet and balancing by herself. Thankfully she stops at the corners thus far but she keeps me moving. It definitely speeds up our trips on the way to the park!

Now that Josie’s in school we’ve shaken our routine up a bit. She’s been loving school so far, making lots of friends, lots of art and enjoying her time away from me and her sister. It generally makes for a nicer afternoon as they are happier to see one another, but sometimes Josie is just tired too which is tough to deal with when Celia is ready to roll! After we pick up Josie we have lunch and then Celia takes a nap about 1:30 and every day I offer Josie some worksheets to do, mazes, letters, coloring by number, connect the dots. I put a few different types out for her and she’ll pick what she wants to do. She goes through phases where she’s very interested and then she’ll be completely uninterested, so right now this is what’s working for us. She’s busy while I help Celia fall asleep and even working on all those reading and number skills while having fun. I don’t think they’re terribly inspired, but I don’t force her to do anything so they must be good enough. Then we do a pile of reading, some laundry folding perhaps and Celia’s up after about an hour and 15 minutes.

The girls got new clothes for the Jewish new year from my parents, so I of course decided to take them out into the woods to take pictures.

Yesterday we enjoyed some apples challah and honey. Josie then asked why wasn’t it Christmas yet because Christmas comes right before the new year. Poor girl is getting very confused.

Today, we went up to the Arlington Great Meadows although we didn’t get very far, we had a good time. Lots of picture taking opportunities too, who ever saw such big tires?

My new 85 lens has some major trouble focusing in back-lit situations which sucks because that’s my favorite kind of lighting in general. Maybe I’ll just have to get better with it in manual or close it down more.

Do these seem like creepy children staring at you in the woods? who then just disappear.

It just sort of reminded me of that.

Here’s two pics of the two of them, first is a few months old, the second two are pretty recent. They like to dress the same a lot recently. Well really Josie likes to dress the same, Celia mostly just goes along with it.

This morning we hosted an end of the summer tea party for the girls and a few of Josie’s friends. Nothing says girl like fancy dresses on 4 year olds. We were lucky to have Blake join us too, Bronwyn’s little brother in addition to Bronwyn, Sophie, Adelaide (her little brother Grant), and Lucy). These pictures are not up to my usual quality standards, I was just trying to get some snapshots where ever and whenever I could given that I was also hosting a party and had to watch my own kids as well. But it gives the timeline for what we did and all.

The party started as all do with the food! Yesterday we took some pound cake and cut out hearts, circles and squares and glazed them to make tiny petit-fours type things, they were popular. Plus my pumpkin muffins and some scones from the store, grapes, cheese as well as cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches. In our search for inspiration online, we found a lot of pictures of people doing alice in wonderland tea parties so while Josie doesn’t really know the story, she loved the ‘EAT ME’ signs. We had a few moments to spare this morning so she made some signs for our cakes as well. Saralynn brought us some yummy iced tea and I put it in a little tea pot the girls could pour from themselves.

After eating the sand table was a big draw. That worked for a while and then when it started to fall apart we enticed them to eat more and then got them onto the hammock.

Then we brought out the big entertainment, the bounce house.

Unfortunately because of the time of day it was super sunny on the house, and it was upwards of 85 degrees outside so it was a little tough to keep the girls happy. But it wasn’t meant to be a long morning, quick as anything it was noon, time for our guests to go home and time for our lunch! I hope everyone had a good time, Josie is already asking for another one! Maybe in the spring on a cooler day.

Friday morning we started off with a tiny snack at home for breakfast and then headed to a pancake house for the real good stuff to start our day. We went to a little place called Sara’s Pancake House which was recommended by the guide book, but as I look around at reviews it got slammed online. For most of our meal only one person was working the restaurant, cooking, taking orders and everything. She was brisk and a bit gruff but we got our food and it was very good. I’ve been trying to make these kinds of pancakes at home (they’re not the small puffy ones but more like crepes, but not quite crepes) if anyone’s got a good authentic recipe.

After breakfast we meandered our way over to the houseboat museum. Amsterdam has around 3000 houseboats, all of them attached up for electricity, some of them can move, some are stationary. They require huge maintenance costs but you are right in the middle of things for sure! We considered renting one and then decided that Celia might walk off the edge as we got in and out too easily and just didn’t need that kind of stress. On our way over, we spied this little boat though!

We then went into the houseboat museum, which is just a houseboat with some information, taking turns with Josie as Celia had fallen asleep. It was interesting to get a peek inside, but quick. It’s a small space, I’m not really sure of the appeal.

After the houseboat museum we tried to buy stamps for our many postcards. We could not find a post office to save our life so we went with our normal mode of helpless tourist, and just asked other people randomly on the street. We were told about stores up there and around the corner, but couldn’t find them, and every store we went into asking for stamps just said ‘no’ and looked at us like we were annoying for not buying something they sold.

After the houseboat we went back to centraal station and caught a bus out to NEMO, the kids science museum of Amsterdam. I think it was raining and so we have no pictures but the outside is interesting, it looks like a ship. And if you’re willing to walk up many flights of stairs it has an amazing roof deck that you can go to for free and see the city. We went inside and explored the place all over. Lots of things to touch and explore, although since it was a science museum it was a bit over Josie’s head and definitely over Celia’s. They enjoyed getting to touch things and move things around a lot. We also watched a short performance (in Dutch) that was one huge domino knockdown, except using lots of things other than dominoes. So that translated well even without any english. It was crazy busy though so we had to keep track of the girls as they whizzed around.

I think the favorite part was a pretend ball packing factory. It had stations with computers that gave a list of balls that needed to be sent down a chute in a particular order and it gave you a scale and size measuring devices. Balls just dropped down randomly for you to find the right one. Celia loved picking up the balls and shoving them in the chute, haphazardly. Josie sort got the idea sometimes, but mostly just liked moving them around and exploring too. Josie also worked with some other kids to raise an elevator by pushing a turnstyle around and around and around and around some more. The one big kid in the elevator with Josie and another boy had to do most of the work! It was all Josie could do to keep walking around in that circle sometimes. I think the museum is really well done and would be fantastic for kids more like 8-12, those who can read and start to understand some more of the science.

After the NEMO we went back to Leidseplein after walking to Centraal Station and grabbed a nice Thai dinner off the main square. The kids were doing really well at eating in restaurants at this point and trying new foods. After dinner we went back to the main square and while we were just looking around some guys set up a big square of rope and started a whole big breakdancing routine. With our hands firmly on our wallets, we watched some very talented guys do spins, dances and gymnastics to music. They were great and we gladly gave them some money at the end. After dinner though our days are pretty much over so with that great entertainment to end our day on, we went home and put the girls to bed.

My favorites from yesterday. I actually tried to use it indoors, while in the same room.

Our apartment was near Vondel Park, quite on purpose, which is the largest green space in Amsterdam I believe. It is a beautiful place with multiple playgrounds, lovely lakes, some tulips and lots of cyclists, walkers, and children. We went first thing in the morning to give the girls some nice time to run around, explore and for me to take some pictures. It happened to be a holiday I believe and so a lot of locals were actually out at the park with their kids once we had been there a while. The first playground we came to had another fun big circular swing the girls liked as well as other swings that had seats for three across a straight bar. One thing I noticed about their play structures is that they accommodated different numbers of children well, from the see-saw that could fit 6 or more, or just work with two to the igloo’s of difference sizes and group swings.

I also loved how their play structures made it difficult to get to the higher parts of the structure. I think it frustrated Josie at times,  but it kept Celia safely closer to the ground. Although now a few months later I wonder what she would be able to climb and get in trouble currently. We played (with plastic cups and spoons we kept in the bag for such emergencies) in the sand and in the structures before we decided to walk on and see more of the park. They had glorious open spaces of greenery, bridges, flowers and water. I had non-cooperative children and only managed a few shots in the gorgeous locations. They were done before I even started sadly.

Notice how Jordi is wearing a fleece winter hat, and Josie and I don’t have our coats zipped? It really wasn’t THAT cold, maybe in the 50’s. Here I go chopping our feet off again in pictures.

Eventually I tricked the girls into sitting still by pointing out this cool tree stump, chair thing.

And finally I got nothing but glares when I tried to get them to sit on the bridge over the water. They stared at the dogs walking past and anything but to avoid looking at my camera while I had them nicely framed by the trees and such.

Speaking of trees, we asked random people walking around and they said we had to go to the playground that was IN the trees and so we followed the trail around to find it. It was this awesome climbing structure plus climbing ropes across multiple trees way up about 30 feet in the air. Once Josie figured out how to get up there she was thrilled and walked all the way to the end and back. I saw other parents up there in these enclosed spaces with their toddlers and kept me and my toddler firmly on the ground.

I took Celia instead into some dark areas to try to get a good silhouette.

We went home for lunch and nap. Then in the afternoon we decided to finish our walking tour from Central Station through Dam Square to Leidseplein. We really enjoy the Rick Steeves books for their detailed walking tours so we could start and stop as we pleased as well as learn something and notice the details on the trip.

One of the things you’ll notice in Amsterdam are the hooks at the top of all the buildings, these are so they can pull furniture and goods up to the top with a pulley instead of trying to bring it up narrow inside staircases. Taxes were levied on houses by how wide they were, so most of the houses were very narrow and tall, only the rich had wide houses.

On our way through the city we stopped at Dam Square. And I still have a teenager sense of humor as I had to keep myself from laughing every time I said to my family, dam square. There they had lots of people dressed up in silly, famous or scary costumes such as an angel, the easter bunny, darth vader and batman. Josie opted for the silver angel.

This walk represents the ‘parents time’ of the day, meaning the kids were along for the stroll and we just tried to enjoy ourselves and learn something as we went. We likely stopped for ice cream or french fries on the way, as the kids always wanted food. We went through main tourist areas and shopping as well as into the flower market where we tried to buy some bulbs to bring home, but apparently it was the wrong season for that. We bought some more fresh flowers for our apartment though which were gorgeous purple tulips.

From there, we’re not sure what we did but I’m sure it involved more eating.