Christmas Eve, Day and Ajax Game

I just figured out how to post a slide show with in a post so some of these are duplicates of the previous Christmas posting. These pics are from Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the Ajax game we went to today. I will post more about that later.

We have a seat for Shane

Now both kids can go for a ride. He seemed to really like it...not a peep out of him the whole time.

video

Here is a video I forgot to add in the last post.

Christmas Day

Here are Kaylin and Shane opening their presents on Christmas Day. We had a nice time relaxing and talking with family. We hope everyone had a great day!

Merry Christmas

We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

It definitely doesn't feel like Christmas Eve with out all of the celebrations. Although we are happy not to have to deal with the cold and snow that all of you in Wisconsin are dealing with!!

Here the Christmas season is not too different than back in the states. There definitely is not as much commercialism and hardly any decorating outside except for the main streets. The season starts with the arrival of Sinterklaas and his helpers Zwarte Piets (Black Peters.) The Zwarte Piets are dresses in 16th century Spanish attire to symbolize the dominance Spain had over the Netherlands during that time.

He arrives by boat from Spain in mid-November and they celebrate his birthday on the 6th. He looks different than the Santa we are familiar with. He wears dark red robes and a hat similar to a bishop's and he rides a white horse.

Traditionally kids left their shoes filled with hey, carrots and sugar for his horse and he then replaced it with treats and gifts for the kids. That was replaced with the stocking that most of us are familiar with now. A popular treat at this time is a chocolate letter based on the first letter of the family's last name.

The Christmas trees and decorations are put up after Sinterklaas comes on the 6th. We actually saw 3 cars with Christmas trees in them today, so it seems that some families don't put up a tree until Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day is spent with family and the 26th is called 2nd Christmas day and spent relaxing and possibly going to a show or out to dinner.

We miss you all and hope you have a safe and Merry Christmas!!

Shane is crawling

Yesterday Shane began to crawl forward. After a few frustrating weeks of the backward crawl he is now very happy to be able to get to what ever toy he wants! (Not that he has to go far because there are toys everywhere. So much for toys only being downstairs!!) Promptly after going forward he made his way to the coffee table and now pulls himself up on the bottom shelf. Couldn't we have had a few days of crawling before he started pulling himself up?! Apparently not! Ready or not we have two very mobile children!

Bakfiets

My bike was delivered a week or so ago and so far so good. We have to get a seat put in for Shane, but Kaylin loves it! There is also a rain cover that I can put on it so the kids don't get wet.

7 months old

Shane William is now 7 months old! He crawles, not forward but backward! He is getting so close it going forward and gets SO frustrated. Today he almost pushed himself up from his hands and knees to a sitting position. New foods have been peas and pears. Most of the past two days he has been sticking out his tongue and looking extra cute!

Cologne, Germany

This past Wednesday we began our first trip since moving here. We decided to go to the Christmas Markets in Cologne (Koln), Germany. Our trip started a bit rocky when we missed our train by 5 minutes, but the 2 hour wait in the train station went surprisingly quickly. We ate lunch and watched the trains and the many people. The way there and the way back we were able to sit in the family section for our 2 1/2 hour train ride. Very helpful with an active 2 year old and squirmy now 7 month old!

We arrived at about 3:00 and made our way through the drizzle to our hotel. ( We are now reaping the benefits of all the travel Matt has done in the past and were able to use his Hilton points for our stay!)

There are 7 Christmas Markets all with a slightly different theme. On Wednesday we went to the market at the Cathedral ( the Cathedral is absolutely stunning and I will write more about that later.) This market was probably the busiest. It was voted the most beautiful in Europe and had 160 different pavilions.

One of the biggest draws at the markets is the Gluhwein. It is a very tasty hot wine and each market has a collector cup. When buying the wine you pay a deposit for the cup and you can either trade it back in when you are finished or keep the cup.

On Thursday we went to 3 markets. The first was the Medieval Christmas Market which was nice but we were expecting it to be more Medieval if that makes sense. It wasn't that busy so it was nice that Kaylin could walk around There was a donkey there which took some persuading to get Kaylin away from it. Nice, but not our favorite.

Next we went to the largest floating market on the "MS Wappen von Koln" it had about 4o stalls with more antiques than anything else.

Our final stop for the day was our favorite, "Old Town Home of the Heinzelmannchen". It was beautiful. Each pavilion reminded me of a log cabin and the smells of wood chips and food was so good. There was also an ice skating rink and a Ferris wheel. It just had a really nice feel to it.

On Friday we went to two markets and went back to the one at the Cathedral. The last market was only open from 4-9 and being Friday they were starting to get very busy as the day went on so we decided to skip it. By 6:00 that night walking through the market with a stroller was a nightmare...think of Summerfest on a Saturday night. BUSY and FRUSTRATING!

So, the first market of the day was the Market of Angels. This market came in at number 2 for us. Very nice had a carousal and 2 angels at the entrance where Kaylin and I had our picture taken and she went on the carousal and LOVED it!

The final market was the Farytale Christmas market based on the brothers' Grimm tales. There were 60 stalls and charactors from the farytales were mounted on top of some of the stalls. There was also a carousal there and we were really hoping Santa would be there or at any of the markets. We had been telling Kaylin for a while now that when we went to Germany we were going to find Santa and wish him a Merry Christmas and to tell him what she wanted for Christmas. We were certain that there HAD to be one there... wrong! Not a one. We did see a big statue of Santa that whe wished a Merry Christmas and she was pretty excited to see the Angels, but we still were disappointed she didn't see Santa. Every time we said we were going to Germany and each day there we were telling her we were going to find him and she was so cute when she would yell at the top of her lungs "Find Santa." Oh well, I think she still had a good time.

The kids were good, only a few minor melt downs and a lot of persuading with rides and treats! Trying to keep a two year old contained admist a large amount of people can be a challange! We hardly heard a peep out of Shane. He spent his time sleeping a looking around. Sleeping at night was a bit of a challange because everytime Shane woke up Kaylin woke up and vise versa.

Friday night we stopped to tour the Cathedral. Words really can not express how beautiful this Church is. The detail is absolutly amazing and the pictures we took don't do it justice at all. Construction of the Church began in 1248 and took, with interuptions over 600 years to complete. It is hard to even belive we were looking at relics that have been around for so long and to think of all the people that have walked on the same floor. If walls could talk.... It really took our breath away. We saw beautiful stained glass windows that were donated in the early 1500s, a sacrament alter from 1350, a chior stall from about 1308 with 104 seats- still the largest in Germany and many other pieces.

We really had a great time and definently now have the travel bug and are starting to figure out where our next trip will be. Matt has off the next two weeks so we plan on taking a few day trips.

Christmas Tree

Last night we put up our Christmas tree. Kaylin had a lot more fun than I even thought she would. She was so cute hanging the ornaments and SO careful and seriously contemplated where each ornament should be hung. She ended up hanging most of the ornaments on the tree and when she couldn't reach where she wanted the ornament hung she would stand on her tip toes and say "up high." Matt and I had so much fun watching and helping her.

Shane also enjoyed himself. He sat watching Kaylin, which makes him happy anyway, the lights and ornaments just an added bonus. He played with one of the soft ornaments Grandma Jane had made when Matt, Kate and Bill were small.

I didn't have my camera on the right setting, so the pics look a bit washed out, but

here Kaylin is hanging the ornament she received from Grandma Jane and Papa Bud for St. Nick.

Here Kaylin is helping Shane with the ornament he received from Grandma and Papa.

This is what happens...

...when you are too busy updating your blog and not paying attention to your 2 year old...

Decorating and Cookie Making

The other day we brought out the Christmas decorations and tried to be a bit creative decorating this year. At the time we didn't think we were going to get a tree ( that had changed and tonight Matt is going to pick one up.) We are not able to nail anything to the walls and have limited shelf space so we decided to hang a few of our ornaments. Kaylin loved picking them out and handing them to me to hang.

On Sunday we went to Jim and Megan's house for dinner. We thought it would be nice to bring them some Christmas cookies. So, Kaylin and I made some cut out cookies and spritz cookies, my favorite!

1st trip booked!

We have booked our first trip! We will be going to Cologne, Germany from Dec 17-the 20 to check out their Christmas markets. Yeah!!

Our house from the outside

My dad has requested pics from the outside of the house so here they are...

Ours is the door on the left. We have the two windows on the left and the 1st three windows on the second floor (the first is cut off). There is a British family that lives on the top 2 floors.

The above 2 pictures are looking left and right from across the street.

Again, the far left door and the two windows next to it and the three windows on the second floor.

Ajax Game

On Sunday Nov 30 Matt when to see Amsterdam's football team play against Utrect. He had a great time going with a few people from work who have season tickets. Two observations that are different here than at any sporting game back in the states; the first being no alcohol was served because they were playing against a rival and the second being there was no music played. The fans chanted through out the entire game. Hopefully we will get some pics soon. Matt took our camera, but I forgot to put the memory card back in and we don't know how to get the pictures off our our internal memory. We are looking forward to going to a game together.

Kaylin's first bike ride

Today Matt took Kaylin on her first bike ride. She wasn't very happy with the ride, but I am sure it was because she was tired and very crabby. Well try again when she is in a more agreeable mood!

Thanksgiving Part 2

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! I hope you all had a great time with family and friends and I hope you all were stuffed with turkey and stuffing! :)

Our first Thanksgiving in our new home was pretty uneventful! Matt went to work and I stuck around here with the kids because the painters are still here working on the back. We did have a Thanksgiving dinner and were able to talk with family which was so nice. We even used our china for the first time. It was nice to finally have it out and ready to use for special occasions.

Turkey is hard to find here and we found that we could get one if we preordered it from Hanos which is like a Sams Club. Unfortunately we found out to late so we'll try next year. I made a small chicken, mashed potatoes, corn (had to search a bit for it), stuffing, rolls, pie (store bought), jello (brought from home) and I surprised Matt with some cheese dip...anyone in the Zomboracz Family circle knows how fantastic cheese dip is!

My helpers:

Kaylin was thrilled with her Jello!