Benjamin turns 9

Benjamin celebrated his 9th birthday March with his friends at a "Espionage adventure". They were given a GPS and coordinates. Following clues and the coordinates , they were supposed to find the bank robber. It was hard to keep their interest and attention. I guess the 9 years was a bit on the border to truly understand this and enjoy it. To add to this , we were supposed to guide this bunch on our own. Somewhere in between Bobby returned with the kids finding it hard to find clues and follow the plot. And some of the kids had completely lost the plot altogether. So those who were interested to finish it got to solve the mystery with the people in charge. The rest who were least bothered were happy to jump around in the bouncy castle and make use of the wonderful park on site. 

So all in all it was a decent party and the every kid enjoyed it.

This year Benjamin wanted a "Diary of a wimpy kid" themed cake. I went the easy route and designed an edible front page and got it printed off at a bakery . All I needed to make was the "book" cake. 

We came back , cut the cake and opened presents...

10 years

It was our 10th wedding anniversary on the 29th of December. I can't believe 10 years have come and gone. We spend the day remembering how we came together, the ups and down and of course the times when the boys were born and every year since then. We remember the years with the boys as our reference point to particular events and fun times.

Ellen our dear friend , gifted us an evening of babysitting the 3 boys , so we could go out for dinner. We chose a nice restaurant called De Beleving in St. Oedenrode .

Here is to another 10 and more!

Bobby decided to take the pictures of me and food!

Elijah turns 6

Catching up after a few months, I thought I would update you all on the birthdays and news after the Christmas holidays.

We started this years birthdays with Elijah turning 6 in February. Since his birthday was during the Carnival holiday, we had the kids party the Wednesday before school closed. In India or back home in Kuwait we were allowed to wear a new dress and specifically not the school uniform but a party wear for our birthday in school. Everyone knew that must be the birthday person. Well, since the boys school were in carnival mode, things were crazy. Wednesday was crazy hair day. Thursday was pyjama day and Friday the kids wore their much awaited costume. So, Elijah celebrated his class birthday with the singing and "traktactie"(Dutch for goodie bag for food or small fun playthings to be handed to the kids, some examples of what people usually do are in the pictures below). The day we got to do it was on the Thursday.

So, Elijah got all dressed up for his birthday celebration in school ...... in his pyjama!
After a bit of a confusion with the teacher on the timing of the celebration, I made it to celebrate a part of it and hand out the goodies. I did get emotional when the teacher said they already celebrated in the morning. She didn't even think to call me find out. This would be the last year that I can come into the classroom and celebrate with him.

The day before on Wednesday we celebrated his birthday with his friends.
Elijah requested a Lego themed birthday this year.  I scavenged around Pinterest and had to choose from the thousands of pins that were so attractive.So here we go, these are pictures from his school birthday party.

The Lego cake

Elijah and his friends

The Lego theme table. With the lego decorations and lego blocks in a vase. M&M sweeties.

I drew a Lego man on the T shirt with fabric pens and the kids colored in it.

Lego brownie brick: The kids could ice the cake block with an icing color of their choice and they would stick the M&M on it.

The birthday boy ready to blow the cake

Lego T Shirts on display

Presents opening time

Singing songs

Giving the goody bags

The traktatie: Cup with popcorn and home made lego gummies. click on Lego gummies to watch the youtube video on how I made these.

Elijah puts them under their chairs and when they open their eyes, magically they find goody bags under their chair.

Birthday boy on his throne

We are so proud of this strong willed, organized, cute little 6 year old! May God bless you abundantly and may you grow up to be a mighty warrior for Him!

Christmas Holidays : Part 2: Aachen

Drielandpunt

The Monday after Christmas we decided to go for a day trip to Aachen. We knew all the Christmas market things would be taken down. But we just wanted to go somewhere new. We left around 10 am and reached "drielandpunt" . This in in the Vaalserberg  area with the  location of the tripoint between Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands and its summit is therefore referred to as Drielandenpunt ("Three-Country Point") in Dutch. This is the highest point in the Netherlands. Not so high compared to mountains in Belgium and Germany but high enough for the flat country.
















The kids had a nice morning enjoying the play area, going through the labyrinth and enjoying the scenery.  We went into the restaurant and the kids had their free hot chocolate that came with the labyrinth. It was cool for them to put there feet on three countries at the same time. 

Dutch winner for managing 3 boys

Enjoying German sausages

We had our sandwiches in the car while I fed David. Aachen was just 20 minutes from here. 


We went around the small town and found the cathedral which Aachen was famous for. This cathedral built in AD 796 and completed two years later was the largest cathedral North of the Alps. It was very boring for Elijah, which he made sure to let us know multiple times before disappearing multiple times. Benjamin tried to keep an excited face and not get it from us. There were parts that he enjoyed too. For Elijah it wasn't "cool" enough. 

After being for for 30 minutes we came out and walked the streets. We had a typical German sausage which was the high point for the boys. A little bit more walking around the centre area the kids were happy to be seeing things. We spotted a typical Aachen cookie shop  called the Aachen Printen (There were many in this small city).

The Elisenbrunnen is one of the most famous sights of Aachen. It is a neo-classical hall covering one of the city's famous fountains. To commemorate Aachen's long tradition of spas and baths, in 1827 the town erected the Elisenbrunnen, an elaborate structure with a drinking fountain and a colonnade in Friedrich-Wilhelm-Platz. A series of plaques highlight the names of some of the many famous people who traveled here to sample its curative waters. It is just a minute away from the cathedral. It used to be a Roman bath. Which was hilarious to the boys. They just couldn't believe that the water was used as a healing drink. And because of the water from the fountain being high on sulphur ,it stank like rotten eggs.  A few toilet jokes later the boys were in good spirit. It doesn't take much to get them jolly.

We headed back to the car park around 17:30. I fed David while we drove back to Eindhoven. A nice day out with the family and back home to sleep in our own beds.  

Famous for their fountains

A wool shop with a bike covered in wool in front of the shop

 

The city centre

A beautifully decorated Printen shop

At the play area