My life as a mum

Nevaehs Summer Bucket list

2017-09-14T16:47:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately, it seems that this year the Autumn weather has started earlier than last year. And so I finally wanted to write a blog post to share Nevaehs Summer Bucket list with you.

This Summer, we mostly stayed in the Netherlands. We only went to Germany to visit Moviepark Germany for two days.

At the beginning of the break, the girls entertained themselves by playing games and watching youtube video’s on their tablets and laptop.

This bothered me a bit, so one evening I called them all together to sit down and told them to make a bucketlist for the Summer. The first one to finish was allowed to have the last bit of ice cream.

Nevaeh can already write a little bit but I told her that she could draw instead. So she made a bucketlist with 10 items on it.

The actual bucket list got lost somewhere but we memorized what was on it and I’m glad to say that she has been able to do all the items on it.

So here is Nevaehs Summer Bucket List.

1 Go to the playground

We never went to an outdoor one but the girls had a lot of fun in two indoor ones. We went to Tun Fun and Ballorig in Amsterdam.

2 Watch a movie.

We watched a couple of movies at home and also went to see Despicable Me 3 at the cinema which was really cool and funny , despite the fact that it was in Dutch.

3 Go to the beach

This was a very difficult one this year since the weather did not really get all that great but I decided one day to just go to the beach anyway to have a picnic there…. Sunny or not…We went to one of the small beaches where we live. It was great, even though it got really chilly after a while and it was quite windy but I brought a beach tent with me and that was fun. Nevaeh and Yovannah played on the beach while Ixora and I chilled in the tent.

4 Have a picnic

This is a bit of a Summer tradition for us. We try to do one every summer, even if it is in our own garden. So we had one on the beach this year. We had the whole beach to ourselves which was great and it really was a lot of fun despite of the wind….

5 Eat ice cream

You can’t have a Summer without having ice cream !! We did not have it a lot but we did have some at home a couple of times and some ice cream cones as well. Yum !!

6 Play on my tablet.

Hmm… yeah… this actually shouldn’t have been allowed on it. But ok….I guess it’s an activity and it is fun to do.

7 Go swimming in a swimming pool

I let Nevaeh do a Summer swim course so she could have some more improvement in her swimming skills , since her sisters were so much further than her. She had a good time but I was horrified when I picked her up the first time. She had a huge ball of hair on her head. I was shocked and I was thinking : 'How will I ever manage to get this back to normal ? All that beautiful hair is ruined and will be lost forever'. But ..thank God….I had this special brush with me and I brushed and brushed and brushed till everyone was long gone and luckily she still has a head full of long hair. Pff…

The days after that I had to wash and brush everyday but not as much as that first day. I moisturised her hair in the morning and just put it in a ponytail instead of a braid as on that first day.

Nevaeh ended the week with an exam for :'Kikker diploma Silver 'and is on a higher level in swim class now. I hope that she will keep improving so she can her first real Swim diploma soon.

I'm so proud of you baby girl !!

8 Eat strawberries.

From all of my girls Nevaeh is the one who loves fruit the most and for some reason strawberries had to be on it. Ofcourse we buy these quite seldom, so I really bought these on purpose.

9 Make ice pops.

This is something we also try to do every Summer, so Nevaeh made some ice pops with juice. I don't think that they came out very well this time but the girls loved them nevertheless.

10 Go to Movie park Germany

We did this in the last week of the Summer break and we had a great time. It was quite an adventure since we went by train and I had never really been in Germany, apart from maybe for a few minutes to buy something while driving through it. And so I had felt a bit anxious about the trip for some time. But it went alright, even though we kind of ‘got lost’ on our way to our hotel because you can’t really rely on google directions and on what people tell you sometimes. But a friendly gentleman brought us all the way to the street where the hotel was, so the Lord did take care of us.

And all of a sudden the weather became very hot so the second day we chose a lot of activities where we could get wet. We had so much fun !!!

But I got reminded that those exciting roller coaster rides are really not for me (anymore)

I almost screamed my lungs out ! No more of that. LOL

So that was Nevaehs Summer Bucket List.

The girls got to do more stuff like the Zoo, Day camp and day night but I’m glad that I made them make a bucket list and that we managed to do everything that was on Nevaehs one.

Next year I’m going to try to make one together with them and try to do all the activities on it.

I’m not sure where the other lists are and what was on them exactly but I know that there were some activities that were the same as on Nevaehs list.

To see our Summer Bucket list from last year, read here.

I hope that you enjoyed reading this post.

Did you (or your children ) have a Summer Bucket list this year ? I would love to hear from you.

Love,

Hello again !

2016-06-13T22:41:00.001+01:00

It has been a little quite on my blog lately but today I'm doing another Hello Monday post to share what we've been up to in the last weeks.

Hello Monday.

Hello 7 year old Yovannah.
Yovannah turned seven years old exactly one week ago today.

Hello birthday clothes.
Unfortunately we spent all morning of Yovannahs birthday in two hospitals and on the way from one to the other and we were home around 5 in the afternoon and was so tired because I did not sleep enough in the night. So she only ended up putting her special clothes on late in the evening and we had chocolate cake afterwards.

Hello to helping to Yovannah helping to make her own chocolate birthday cake.

Hello to learning to ride on pony's.

Hello short hospital stay for Ixora.

Hello Bear doctor Ixora.

Hello special Zoo time

Hello to getting to sit in police cars on the way to the Zoo and back.

Hello to playing on the bouncy castle.

Hello self-made hut/tent in the garden.

Hello ice cappucino from Starbucks.
I 've never been a real coffee drinker especially since I have been pregnant or breastfeeding the girls for years in a row. Lately I have been drinking it now and then when I felt too tired in the morning because of lack of sleep. So when I was offered two of these, I gave them a try and I really loved them ! I even bought one in the shop today. I found out that they sell them in the supermarket. But they are not that cheap so I won't be getting them often.

Hello Vanilla Coffee latte from Nescafe
Another coffee I tried lately is coffee late with a vanilla taste. Absolutely yummy. And I am really drinking this a lot now.

Hello gym time.
I finally made it to the gym last weekend. I went with a friend to a gym where we could do a trial lesson. We did Body pump and Zumba classes I had done before last year when I was regularly going to the gym. I enjoyed the Body pump and I am still feeling the muscle pain.
The zumba class had too many different dance steps (like a whole complicated- like choreography) and the fitness level was a bit too low for my taste.

Hello favourite flowers that I managed to get for under 2 euro in the supermarket.

Hello more medical tests for Ixora.

Hopefully by the grace of God these were really the last !!!

I love you girly. I know that you''ll be all better soon !

Hello new week. Please be a great one !!

What are you saying Hello to today ?

Love and blessings,

Reading and writing at an early age.

2016-05-31T23:42:00.004+01:00

As you might know I went back to school to become a Montessori teacher. It wasn't a very easy year. I especially did not like being away from the girls so much. But I am so grateful to God that I made it. Unfortunately after moving back here, I have come to the conclusion that the profession 'Montessori teacher' does not exist here. In Ireland this is a teacher who has studied Early Childhood Education and the Montessori method and who is qualified to teach children from 2,5 years to 6 years old. It is quite sour that I worked so hard to become a Montessori teacher and that that's just not a possibility here. I miss working with children and teaching but I know that the time to do that will come again one day. And for the time being, I can make myself useful by helping out in the kids church of the church that I attend and I can use my skills to help my girls with their school work.

It is not easy to see how little the Montessori method is used here with young children, because it is something that I really believe in. But I think that it just does not suit the school system here in Holland. Children in Holland start primary school at 4, no matter when their birthday is.
They then go in group 1 and they normally move to group 2, if they are 5 when the new school year starts. But sometimes exceptions are made and children who turn 5 later in that calendar year, are allowed to go to group 2.
In group 1 the children don't learn a lot about reading or writing yet, but the children normally share a class with group 2 and in that way they can pick up something earlier. Children from group 2 are taught phonics and can try to write letters. The real reading and writing here in Holland starts only in group 3.

My youngest daughter Nevaeh started primary school in february from last year. Because she only did group 1 for a few months, she started the new school year in group 1 too. She has picked up the phonics which the kids of group 2 have been learning already and knowing that children should be able to learn to read from 3,5 years old according to the Montessori method, I started to teach her a few words made up out of three phonics. She understood it very quickly and was so excited to learn. I also worked with her myself regarding writing and taught her how to write her own name, which she is thrilled about too.

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I guess for primary school here in Holland the only benefit of young children learning to read and write from an earlier age is that they will do a little better than their classmates when they are in group 3. It will be easier for them to start reading and writing and to progress in that area.
In Ireland some schools start reading and writing from age 4 in a class called Junior infants which you could compare with group 1. Only in this class, children need to be 4 before the school year starts and in some schools children will learn the phonics shortly after the school year has started and at the end of Junior Infants the child will be able to read a few simple books already.

It was not easy to accept how different it goes here but I am trusting that the girls will end up just fine. I see that the fact that Yovannah had learned reading and writing in her first school year, has really helped her to progress fast in group 3 here, even though the lessons are in Dutch now.
And through practising with Nevaeh I can see that I could help her myself with learning to read. So she will progress faster when she will be in group 3.

My opinion about learning children to read and write at an early age is; if there is evidence that they are capable of doing it, why would you deny them to possibility to further develop in that area ?
But I do understand how some schools and countries prefer to let children play longer, because children learn through play too. It promotes all areas of their development. Maria Montessori did not really believe in play but since there are benefits to play too, I would not completely leave it out and I would definitely like to have it as part of the curriculum. But I also would not deny children the possibility to obtain kills that they are well capable of obtaining.
It will only help them to be more succesful in education later in life.

Today it is the last day of the blogging challenge and even though I have a couple of ideas, it took me a while before I knew what to write about and decided to choose this topic.

What do you think about the Montessori method ?
I would love to hear from you.

Love,

Happies and Crappies

2016-05-30T19:28:00.001+01:00

Today I wanted to do a Happies and Crappies post about things that were very okay lately and things that have not been okay.

Happies.

The bouncy castle has arrived. After more than 1,5 years the girls finally have access to the bouncy castle again. My mum was so kind to post it to us from Suriname where we spent two months and where we had left it for the time being. We only have not been able to use it yet. Mainly because the blower has an Irish plug so I need a special plug adapter to be able to use it here in the Netherlands. I tried to find it here in Ijburg today but I've not yet been succesful in finding it. So the girls will have to wait a little bit longer before they can jump on it again.

After spending the whole weekend without a bank card, yesterday evening it finally turned up.
I knew that I had left it on the table on Thursday afternoon but it was not there in the evening. Later that day the smallies had been playing close to the table with a big box which they had loaded loads of stuff in and Yovannah went to sit in it, waiting for me to take a picture.
I already had wondered if my bankcard had ended up inside the box and I had looked in it a little bit but not throughly yet. And then one of the girls decided to clutter the livingroom floor with stuff out of the box for some reason. Ofcourse I was not pleased with it at all, but then I remembered that the bankcard could have ended up in the box, so I quickly looked at the stuff on the floor and yes. my orange card was lying under a bunch of stuff. Yay ! It was about time because I was running out of cash.

Yovannah in the box she went to sit in for fun

I found a tray for planting veggies in the Blokker today. We have a lot of tiny veggy gardens , the so called 'moestuimtjes' from the Albert Heijn but somehow we were too late in purchasing the tray that you could use with it. I was quite disappointed when I realised that we could not buy it anymore. But now I feel so blessed that we've found something else instead. God is good ! So I hope to plant all the veggy gardens this week with the smallies, when we have a free afternoon. We have to hurry because it is almost June.

I found a bag with garden soil for my garden in my local supermarket for 1,25. It was the last one so even though I was walking, I purchased the 25 kg weighing, bag of sand and carried it home, while thinking ; this weighs heavier than Nevaeh and I never walk so far carrying her either. But I managed. Well, I had no choice if I wanted the bag of sand to make it to the garden. I hope that it will be enough to fill up the big gap in the garden, possibly caused by the smallies who tend to use it as a sandpit.
We got invited to a social shopping day where we could pick out some free new clothes. I got a new pink coat for the summer, two skirts, shorts and figure skates. And then I got a card to shop at a special discount shop where I could get things like a bag of diapers for 0,90 cents which would normally cost around 7 euro. I really felt so blessed. God is good,

One of the new skirts that I got for free

Crappies

The appointment I made with a handy man, did not go through last week and he hasn't told me when he can make it. This means that the things that I had planned to have finished, are still not done.
Still some walls without paint or wallpaper and still no curtain rails.
Only God knows why....I have thought about trying it myself but so far I am way too busy with taking care of the girls and taking them to different appointments and so on.

My big little girl is still not well. She had to have a lot of tests done over the past weeks but I hope that the tests that we did today, are the last ones and that it will be clear what causes her problems and that she can get the right treatment for it. But more than that, we believe that God can and will heal her. So even though this is not an easy time, I'm keeping my eyes on God and I'm praising Him in advance that this illness will soon disappear from our lives in Jesus' name !

What were your happies and crappies from this past week ?

I would love to hear from you.

Love,

Never have I ever...

2016-05-29T20:31:00.001+01:00

Today it is Sunday, so it is time for another fun post. I decided to do a ' never have I ever' post.

Never have I ever run a full marathon .....but I ran a half marathon for women once in Dublin.

Never have I ever owned a brand new car ......but I owned two second hand ones, even though I only had an Irish learner drivings license.

Never have I ever had a book published...... even though I am intending to do that one day.

Never have I ever traveled to the United States......., even though I hope to have that happen some day.

Never have I ever gotten a baby boy........, but this would really be a dream come true.

Never have I ever had a dream wedding....., but I am believing that this is still possible.

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Never have I ever gone skiing....., but I hope to give it a try one day.

Never have I ever swum with dolphins......., but this looks like an amazing thing to do.

Never have I ever had a baby shower......., even though this seems very cool to experience.

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Never have I ever owned my own house........, but I believe that this still can happen in the future.

Never have I ever learned to play keyboards.........., even though I started but then the keyboards that I borrowed, broke. But maybe some day...

Never have I ever had a real baby room/nursery for any of my kids....., but who knows ....maybe in the future....

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Never have I ever learned to make corn braids well.. ....,even though I have tried and I hope that I will be able to one day.

Never have I ever been a mission trip for longer than two weeks......., but I am expecting that that will change.

Never have I ever given up on my faith in God .......,but only by His grace !! (Thank You Lord !)

What is it that you 'never ever have' (and maybe possibly would want to in the future ) ?

I would love to hear from you.

Love,

Loving photography

2016-05-28T22:34:00.000+01:00

It seems that I am getting the dates a little wrong when it comes to some of the topics.Oh well. I meant to do a post on photography this week. Now I realise that that was the topic of a few days ago. Since the topics are optional, I decided to post on this topic anyway today.

I always loved taking pictures from a certain age, There is something about it that interests and fascinates me. I love looking at beautiful pictures too. At some time in my life I decided to work in a photo studio. I would sell photo products, book photo and video sessions for parties, handle orders and take pictures in the studio too. I also was in training for video and photo work at parties.

It was actually very exciting and I learned a lot from it but at a certain time I changed jobs to help someone out and then moved abroad.

I always wanted to do a photography course to learn to take better pictures but unfortunately all I did was order an online course and then never taking it because I was too busy. I still hope to do a course one day.

I love taking pictures at weddings and sometimes I think that I would love to be a freelance photographer. I have a lot of learning to do though.

Lately, I mostly photograph my girls. Unfortunately I don't even have a normal camera now (just one on my old phone ) so the pictures I take are nothing much but I just love to have a record of some things that have happened. Just creating a record of some memories.

I love my pictures. They mean so much to me. Losing pictures through broken or stolen phones, broken memory cards, broken or stolen laptops or pc's really hits me hard. It really breaks my heart and it takes some time before I am over it.

Even though I must say that I have too many pictures that I have never printed out or did anything with and I think I should at least do more with some of them This would help me to be able to keep them too.

So that is my plan, to that one day. To look through my thousands of pictures and pick the most special ones out and/or put them online somewhere,

Today I wanted to share some of my favourite pictures. I have not tried hard to find them. I remember an email I sent someone two years ago in which I attached some of my favourite pictures that I recently had taken of my kids. So I decided to share some of those. Most of them were taken with a camera. Only the one from Nevaeh in the car, I took with my phone.

Yovannah at the beach in Bray, Dublin Ireland July 2014

Nevaeh in the car in Para, Suriname September 2014

Nevaeh at a playground in Amsterdam Holland August 2014

Yovannah laughing at a playground in Amsterdam Holland August 2014

Nevaeh at a playground in Amsterdam Holland August 2014

Yovannah playing at a playground Amsterdam Holland August 2014

I hope that you enjoyed this post.

I would love to hear from you.

Love and blessings,

The stairs

2016-05-27T21:19:00.004+01:00

I have never been in favor of spanking children, even though the bible mentions it. But unfortunately I can’t say that my girls never have gotten a slap, but it has really been more reserved for special circumstances like when they kept going on and on with wrong behaviour despite warnings or they had done something absolutely crazy or dangerous or other situations where I felt really desperate enough, like them making loads of noise in the night when we were staying in someone elses house. But I normally feel bad about it. I just don't like hurting anyone and especially a child, even though it is a way to correct them.

Unfortunately, children are children and they don’t always listen or sometimes do something naughty or bad. When Ixora was 2 and we were living on our own, I started to use the time out method. When she repeatedly would not listen, I would send her in time out in the hall. Then we moved to Ireland and moved in with others and in cases like that I don’t feel that I can use that method well because the child might protest and cry and that would make me feel really bad that I would disturb someone in the house. So I don’t feel that I can discipline well around others. And later I did not think about this method anymore. Years later I happened to see a few episodes of Super nanny and I liked her ideas of time out and over the years I have tried it a few times but I never really kept using it.

The time out method also came up when I talked to a parenting expert but again I was living with other people at that stage, so I could not really use it.

At a certain stage, I started using a countdown when the girls did not want to listen. I then say : ’ I ‘m counting till 5. ‘ and then I started counting ; 1, 2, 3,…….And for some reason, that really started to work. I used it a lot and it helped me get the required result: make them stop doing what I don’t want them to do and/or start listening to me.

We are now living on our own and a while back, I started to use the stairs as a place for time out.

It has turned out to be a good way to discipline the girls. It especially helped me a lot when I would be really angry. When you are angry, you have to be careful that you don’t react by slapping. But I noticed that the stairs really helped me. Sending them to the stairs just felt enough. There would be no problem for them ‘sitting their time out ‘ either, because they knew that they had done something wrong and that you were angry at them and they didn’t mind sitting in time out to think things over and to get ready to repent and say sorry.

Because I guess. that is really what it is about. That the child gets the chance to calm down, think things over and then gets to discuss the issue with the parent, say sorry and receive forgiveness from the parent. All with the hope that they will learn from it and that the next time, they won’t do it again or that they will listen more quickly.

The girls are getting more used to the stairs now since I am using it more and more.

I use it for instance when certain rules are not being followed. Yovannah sometimes has a hard time to control her emotions and then she can scream really loud and throw a chair on the floor.

Then I say; ‘You know that that is not allowed in here’ and then I send her to sit on the stairs.

So I am not really using the same method from super nanny. I also normally don’t leave them on the stairs for a long time. It is a correction method, a principle : ‘You are not following the rules, so you need to live with the consequences.’

I lately added other forms of punishment though, like no dessert or not allowing them on play dates for a while. I see that it seems to help, so I’m really pleased with that. Slaps are really very rare and even though some people might think differently about slapping, I personally feel better disciplining through time outs and taking certain privileges away.

What is your favourite method to discipline your children ? What works best for you ?

I would love to hear from you.

Love.

Letter to my 17 year old self.

2016-05-26T22:31:00.000+01:00

Today's optional post topic is a letter to your younger self. So I decided to write a letter to my 17 year old self.

Dear 17 year old me,

I know that a girl from your school with your type of hair, has recently put those ‘curly perm’ curls in her hair and after chemically straightening your hair for years, you also want the same curls.

Don’t do it. You will end up in a hair salon where they will tell you that you can’t get the curls unless you cut all the hair off that is previously straightened and even though you don’t want that , the hair dresser will tell you, that she will start cutting your hair to make it even and she will cut so much off that everyone thinks that you might as well let her cut off the straightened hair because she has cut a lot of your hair already. So she will do that and you will get the curly perm that you desired so much.

But it is a very short do, so it will end up looking nothing like the curls of that girl. You will not like it. And your hair will never be as long as it was back then. You will find out much later that you have natural curls that you love and you will keep your natural hair for years for that reason, even though there are times in which you yearn for straight hair but you are too afraid to lose your natural curls, so you will stick with them and only now and then use a flat iron to straighten your hair. Your choice for natural hair will also be because you hope that your hair will grow long again and even longer than it has ever been but you will not make enough effort to give your hair the extra care that it needs, to retain length, so it will not work much.

Me with natural curls a few years ago

You have done well in passing from the HAVO and because you have math and physics, you believe that your best choice in study is physiotherapy. Think about it some more. It will be nothing like you expected, really very medical, because you need to know all names of bones and muscles. You will not like it and will not be successful in completing it. You will decide to a totally different study after 1 year and move back to Suriname where you first do a preparation year at the university because you need to have the subject Economy to be allowed to study Law.

You will pass this and start Law but will never finish it but it will always keep you thinking; maybe one day I will still finish my Law studies. It is something your late father always wanted you to finish and you told him that you would. And you will never give up on the possibility to do it because your dad also got a university degree when he was in his sixties and he received the title of professor in Dutch literature.

You will end up finishing some other education which you never expected and which I am sure your dad would’ve been proud of too. You end up studying Childcare and Early Childhood Education when you will be a lot older. But it will change your life so much and you will desire to even study further in this area.

I know you think that you are ready to live on your own, while you start your physiotherapy study but you are not. You don’t have a choice because your mother decides to move back to Suriname because of sickness of her partner. You also want to be close to the school, where you are studying so you don't have to travel far, so you decide to move to a city where you hardly know anybody. But living on your own will not be as great and easy as you thought. You will not have a tv and you will not have any nice house mates (only two strange guys) and not a lot of good contacts where you live. Even though you do have some friends, you will feel quite lonely in your room and you will not like being alone so much and this will stop you from really being able to study like you should. When you move back to Suriname, where you start your law study , studying goes much better for you. You only go live on your own again when you are much older and then you can handle it better.

Don’t worry about growing up and being independent, everybody does that on his own pace and you will get there on your time. Even though you are 17, inside you are still a little girl. Don't worry, you will end up just fine.

Love,

Current me.

What would you like to say to your younger self ?

I would love to hear from you.

Love,

What Kids Wore Wednesday; Pink love

2016-05-25T12:51:00.000+01:00

Today I am sharing an outfit that Nevaeh was wearing a few days ago.

In the below pictures, Nevaeh is wearing a pink top with long sleeves with the face of a dog on it.

We got this on sale in the Dutch shop HEMA and she loves it. I also think that this top is very cute.

She is wearing the top with a denim skirt from NEXT, which I really love.

I love clothing from NEXT. They have cute clothing for kids in very good quality but it is not really cheap so when we were living in Ireland, I used to look forward to the NEXT Summer Sale where you can buy clothes with big discounts. This skirt is an item from the Summer sale from a few years ago. I especially love how NEXT uses a lot of denim but then they decorate it with colour, like on this skirt, I really fell in love with this skirt, which I initially got for Yovannah but has now been passed on to Nevaeh. There are a lot of cute drawings on it, for instance an orange smiling sun.

The skirt is combined with leggings in hot pink with some glitters on them.

We got them on sale in the Dutch shop WIBRA. They are from a very stretchy material.

Top : HEMA

Skirt: NEXT

Leggings: WIBRA

I hope that you liked this WKWW post and if you are sharing a similar post on your blog, I would love to see it. Please leave your link in the comments below.

Linking up with The Pleated Poppy.

Love,

Our Summer Bucket list

2016-05-24T23:12:00.000+01:00

The girls will be in school for a couple more weeks but Summer is coming soon (here in Holland it is not officially Summer yet) and I thought it would be a nice idea to start thinking about what we are going to do this Summer.

So here is our Summer Bucket list for this year, so far.
I chose 20 things to put on the list.

1 Visit the beach

2 Go to an amusement park.

3 Have a barbeque.

4 Get small braids plaited.

5 Play with water balloons.

6 Have a water fest with watose er guns, water slide etc.

7 Have a picnic in the park

8 Do a karaoke night.

9 Go camping and make smores.

10 Make a yummy treat and a kids cocktail.

11 Make popsicles.

12 Fly a kite.

13 Make drawings with sidewalk chalk.

14 Dance in the rain.

15 Go to the movies.

16 Go swimming.

17 Grow flowers and veggies in our garden.

18 Go to a kids farm.

19 Go fruit picking.

20 Eat watermelon

What are your plans for the summer ?

I would love to hear from you.

Love,

Music Monday: Worthy of it all

2016-05-23T21:50:00.000+01:00

I am a little tired today and I had a headache earlier, so today I just want to share one of my favourite songs.
I really love to sing but mostly I love to worship God. It gives so much joy and nothing beats entering into His presence through worship. This is really one of those songs that makes it easy to do that. I really love both the melody, as well as the lyrics. I think the first time I heard it and loved it, it was the Romanian version of it, which I really love too.
This is a song which really lifts God up and encourages us to give Him what He deserves : all our praise and worship from the bottom of our heart.

Let everything that has breath praise Him with everything that's within him. He so deserves it !!

Worthy of it all

I hope that you are blessed through this song.

Love and blessings,

Wish list

2016-05-22T22:25:00.000+01:00

The topic for the BEDM challenge yesterday was ;lists.

I thought that it would be nice to make a wish list of things that I would like to get.

So today I will be sharing a few things that would be on my wish list.

1 A dish washer

For some reason I don’t really prioritize doing my dishes lately. They are mostly left to do last. It also seems to take ages to do the dishes by hand. A dishwasher would be so handy. It would really save so much time. Plus my sink is currently clogged. I would not have that problem if I'd have a dishwasher.

2 A bicycle

I know walking is a good way to exercise but lately I am really longing to have a bicycle.

When we have a little further to go here on Ijburg, I usually let the smallies go by bike.

So they don’t always have to walk, but I still do. It is not very handy either, especially when the girls decide to go ahead of me, like today. I was already tired so I did not run after them, but a concerned lady apparently was waiting with them before the traffic lights. I think that she maybe wanted to make sure that they would not cross the street on their own. Well, so it would just be handy, much quicker and I would not get so tired if I had a bike. I saw an advertisement at the supermarket the other day . Someone was selling a bike. So who knows, I might have one soon.

3 A photo camera.

I’m not very lucky when it comes to photo camera’s I suppose. My girls broke the last one by dropping it. I do value them a lot. I would much easier use a digital photo camera than the photo camera of my phone. I would be able to take better pictures with it. Especially now that the weather is quite sunny, I can somehow not see anything on my phone. A couple of pictures have not come out right because of that. I would for instance then think that I was taking a picture of Yovannah standing in a front of a pony, smiling, while she is brushing him. Then to find out that I only have a picture of the top that she was wearing. haha

What would be on your wish list ? I would love to hear from you.

Love,

Shopping haul kids H & M

2016-05-21T22:20:00.001+01:00

When the warm weather started, I promised the smallies to get them flip flops. Since we mostly shop at H &M, we looked online and the girls decided that they both wanted the flip flops with a cute butterfly on them and -you can guess it- a bunny and a cat on them.

I realised this month that Nevaeh really did not have that many clothes and from the ones that she does have, a couple of them are stained, damaged or too small/ tight. She really has grown a lot. There is only a small difference in height between her and Yovannah and this means that more and more they are seen as twins now.

Both her and Yovannah didn't really have shoes for church or to wear with skirts and dresses either. They would normally wear boots or rain boots with their dresses. Only Nevaeh had gotten some other shoes for her birthday. So I decided since we are getting some extra money this month, to take the girls to H & M to get the flipflops, one of the 4,99 dresses, a 4,99 t-shirt and a pair of shoes.

We went to the shop yesterday after swimming lessons but since we did not have a lot of time left before the shop closed, we did not get the chance to get any dresses.

In this post, I am sharing what the smallies chose. Yovannah also asked to get her an outfit for her birthday so we got that too but I will be sharing that another day.

Nevaehs pick

A t-shirt with a cat on it

A hair band with cat ears

Flip flops

Summer shoes for church/dresses

Yovannahs pick

A t-shirt with a cat and a bird

Flip flops

Summer shoes for church/dresses

Do you ever shop at H & M ? Or do you have another place that you always shop from ?

What do you think about what my girls picked ?

I'd love to hear from you.

Love,

Fashion Friday; high heels.

2016-05-20T23:43:00.001+01:00

I am not a fashionista but I do like nice clothes a lot. If you've seen my last What I wore Wednesday post, you have probably realized that I don't buy new clothes really often. I really own a lot of second hand clothes. Some bought, some of them I got for free.

I don't really wear high heels a lot. But I do have one pair that I wear to church on most Sundays.
Since I really can't walk on really high spike heels, these are kind of 'block heels',so I can walk on them without any problems. I can't have them on for very long though, when I have to stand or walk a lot. They really start to hurt very terribily after some time.

I do love high heels though. They look nice and feminine. And I think with some outfits they would really fit nicely. The other day I had a lace top on and I thought that it would be nice to wear it with heels. And I also thought that it would be nice to try and practise walking on heels.
I searched online and it got me so excited. All of a sudden I saw so many shoes that I liked and would've liked to have, that I could really imagine why some people love shoes so much and why some people really own a lot of them.

I didn't buy any of them though. Not yet.

I really like this one.

They are called "Cutiepie Mary Jane pumps" . I saw them on the webshop Topvintage.

I think that they would look nice with my lace top.

What do you think ? Do you wear high heels ?

I would love to hear from you.

Love,

A little bit of garden inspiration

2016-05-19T22:59:00.000+01:00

One of the things that I don't like about being (a) (reasonably new) single (mum) is that you have to do everything yourself and/or on your own. I guess that is why a lot of things still have not been done in my house. That and the lack of a savings account. But seriously, I don't even have my curtains hanging the way they should. And I guess I would have had that done, if there was a man living here in the house or if someone would have showed me how.
I counted on my mum -who used to be a single mum at some time too and who to me seemed to be able to do just anything and who was here in the Netherlands on a holiday a few months ago- to teach me how to be an independent single mum and direct me in how to hang up my blinds but unfortunately it didn't happen. My blinds are still in the same plastic packaging as they have been for a couple of months now. They are now waiting for me to make an appointment with a 'handy man' who then also will do some painting in my house and hang up my curtains on rails.
It is a bit frustrating at times, especially when my kids have once again been playing in my bed room at the window and then to come in my bed room and see that there is no curtain hanging at my window. Because they accidently pulled the curtains a bit too hard and then one of the hooks which was attached to a hook in the wall with a cord, broke.

Last month I tried to make an appointment with a handy man who did my floor downstairs but I did not hear back from him, so I will try again this month and hopefully I will be able to get that out of the way.

We moved in this wonderful place last year -read about it here.- and I was delighted that we have a garden. I always loved having a garden. I also love planting stuff and last year, I delighted myself with the little gardens that the girls could use at the Kids farm, close to where we lived, when we were staying in an apartment. We planted sunflower seeds and we were amazed at how big they became. Everybody talked about them and loved them, we were told and ofcourse we felt a little proud of these beautiful huge flowers that we had planted in our little garden.

sunflowers growing at the garden at the kids farm

So it is nice that now we have our own garden in this place that we are renting.
The only thing is, I have hardly looked at it. My brother took out some weed at the start but after that, I left it completely as it was for months. Only after Christmas I tried to plant our tiny Christmas tree in it but it does not seem to be going very well. And I also planted a rose plant in it, which isn't in great condition either.
It somehow is as if I'm not too lucky with plants, apart from the ones in the gardens at the kids farm.
But then I saw something in a supermarket that I wanted for a long time. An apple tree. Well, a thin trunk with roots, with some branches. No leaves or anything on it. So a beginning apple tree. It stayed in the living room for a while until one day I thought , now it is time to try and put it in the ground. I tried to understand the instructions that came with it, which consisted only of a set of pictures and I thought that I understood that it needed to get out of the plastic bag and then in a bucket with water. (Ixora what do you see on the picture? Is there really water in the bucket ?) And that I then had to make a big hole, put the plant in it and put the water in it too. Just in case, I searched for a youtube video and it gave me the confidence to plant the tree in the ground.

So I did and was praying that something good would happen with it. It stayed the same for a few days, weeks and all of a sudden leaves started to grow on it. I'm so delighted. I might need another tree for it to eventually get apples but I'm really happy with how the tree is growing. Praise God !

For the rest, my garden is currently full of weeds that keep growing like crazy.
In Ireland the girls used to have a bouncy castle in the garden and we left it with my mum in Suriname, but it finally got shipped and it will be delivered in the weekend, so it is time to start looking at the garden and think about what we are going to do with it.
I saw a picture on facebook of someones garden which was posted in a facebook group that I joined and it made me think: I would love that idea.
Close to the house there are tiles and I would love to have some nice garden furniture there, with pillows and all and I'd love to have grass in some part of my garden and then plant some flowers and vegetables on a small piece at the left side of the garden.
I decided to look online for some inspiration.
And I'm sharing a few ideas that I like.

source

What I like is the bench with pillows and the neat grass mat.

source

I'm liking the bench with pillows with table and the cosiness.

source

I like how there is a bit of a separation between the sitting area and the neat grass mat.

It is all kind of the same idea. A tiny bit of a 'livingroom outside' idea. For me it would mean, cleaning the tiles and adding a wooden bench with some cosy pillows. Maybe a table. And then getting rid of the weed and looking at the possibility of adding sand (there somehow is some sand missing ) and maybe planting grass on it. It would be handy to have some male working on this too but I think that I am up for the challenge and that by the grace of God I can 'cosy up' the garden a little bit.

It is getting warmer now, so the girls are spending a lot of time outside now and then at least they would have somewhere cosy to sit when taking a break from jumping on the bouncy castle or playing with something else. And if they have friends over, they can sit too. The only thing I worry about a little is the rain. But we will see how it goes.

What does your garden look like ? I would love to hear from you.

Love,

What I wore Wednesday : dresses

2016-05-18T20:20:00.000+01:00

I decided to finally do a What I wore Wednesday post again.
I will be sharing two outfits that I've had on over the last days in which I have been doing the 30 day challenge of wearing dresses and skirts. Read about it here .

When I was in Ireland I used to love going to the carboot sale to pick up cheap stuff and I often shopped there for clothes.

I got the dress that I am wearing in the picture below, on the carboot sale together with two different dresses for 1 euro. I did not wear it for ages but since I don't have a lot of dresses and skirts and I am trying to do this challenge, I had to give it a try.
It is really short, so I always wear it with pants. I chose black dress pants since they seemed the best match. The top from the dress is from t-shirt material and the dress is more cotton- like but very soft and it has pockets. The colours are dark-blue and white.
I also bought the brown jack on the carboot sale but it was new and so I paid about 8 euro for it.
It is made of leather look material with pockets and buttons.

This dress is also from the carboot sale and I got it for 2 euro. I had it on to go to church. It is a little silky in the colour silver, with tiny beads on it. The dress is from A wear. It is also above the knee so I've paired it up with different black dress pants. I am also wearing a black top under it with long sleeves made out of chiffon.

What have you been wearing lately ? I would love to see it.
If you have a post about it, please share it in the comments.

Linking up with The Pleated Poppy.

Love,

Loving Romania (day 17)

2016-05-17T19:45:00.000+01:00

Today’s topic of the BEDM challenge is wanderlust/travel.

I thought it would be a nice opportunity to write about Romania.

The first time that I visited Romania, was 16 years ago when I went there on a mission trip as part of a team of five people. We traveled for 5 days from Holland to Romania, sleeping in parking lots in a camper and a truck. It was a whole adventure.

We had a huge truck of goods with us and our goal was to bless people from the gypsy villages with goods and to minister to them through singing, preaching and prayer and also to encourage the local church in bringing the gospel to the gypsy’s as well. It was a very special experience, standing on a big field with people, preaching, being translated by a translator, experiencing the presence of God.

It was great to be used by God, seeing people get saved and encouraging the youth in going out to bring the gospel. Glory to God !! God filled me with a compassion for the people of Romania and told me that I’d had to go back to work for Him.

I went on another mission trip to the same place the next year and felt blessed to see brandnew churches in some places where we had preached the year before. One girl had been miraculously healed during one of our services and as a result her whole family had been saved. And that second year they were all getting baptized.

The youth had been mobilized in a big way and they now had their own mission team that went out and did outreaches to the gypsy villages regularly. Halleluyah ! Glory to God !! We ministered a lot through prayer this time. And God did miracles and wonders. Halleluyah ! A lot of people were sick because they could not go to a doctor. But God saw their need and touched them and healed them. At that time Romania mainly meant ‘mission field’ to me….but it really had a big place in my heart.

I loved the Romanian song ‘Binecuvanteaza Doamne Romania' which means " Lord bless Romania".

I never went back to Romania until last year.. But I never forgot the compassion that God had put in my heart for this country. I started to learn the language and God started to put a desire in me to help the people in Romania in a practical way and then through this to minister to the lost.

Last year, I finally went back. This time on a two week holiday with my girls.

We had the most amazing time and it really surpassed my expectations. And the girls loved it too.

Even after going there twice before, I never realized how beautiful Romania really is.

Where I went, there were beautiful mountains and I really fell in love with that place.

But I’ve also seen other pictures of other parts of Romania that really take your breath away. Really so much more beautiful then what I have seen.

It almost annoys me then, that no one seems to know that. And then to realize how much poverty there is in Romania. It is like most people see Romania that way. A country with poor people, which is not developed. If people hear that you went on a holiday to Romania, they are really surprised.

I hope that one day more people will realize how beautiful the nature in Romania is and that Romania will be able to build up their economy through tourism as well.

I want to be used by God to do whatever He chooses to bless this beautiful country and its people through His grace. I’m looking forward to all God has in store regarding this !!

Glory to His name !!

Would you ever visit Romania ? I would love to hear from you.

Love and blessings,

Hello good times.

2016-05-16T19:35:00.000+01:00

Today I'm sharing a few moments from our past week again through another Hello Monday post.

Hello Monday

Hello Pony Buddies in 'extremely' hot weather.

As I mentioned in another post, the smallies started a course called 'Pony Buddies'. They started last Wednesday and it was really very hot in the sun that day.
.

Hello sandpit and glide at the kids farm.

Hello bunny !!

Hello recycle project at school.

Hello Picnic in the garden.

Hello to Ixora catching some sun while she is eating.

Hello to making some yummy mini muffins !

Hello grocery shopping with separate trolleys.

Hello water with mint.

I am really trying to drink more water now (one of my goals for May) and I am adding some mint to give it some flavour.

Hello Mickey, what are you doing there ?

My silly girlies...put you in there.....didn't they ? hahaha

Hello new week, we hope that you will bring us a lot of good things,....and good times !

I hope that you enjoyed this Hello Monday post and that you are having a good Monday.

What are you saying Hello to this week?

I would love to hear from you.

Love,

Favourite things on Sunday. (Day 15)

2016-05-15T21:43:00.003+01:00

Today I am not feeling very fit so I wanted to do an easy , fun post. I used to love doing Sunday Social posts which you might have seen on my blog before.

Unfortunately, the Sunday Social link up stopped after a few years but I found one of them online and I have decided to base this post on some of the questions from that Social Sunday. I am using a few of them and I'm adding some of my own.

Name 4 jobs you’ve had in your life.

Cashier at a supermarket, administrative worker, assistant manager of a clothing shop, billing clerk.

Name 4 tv series that you would like to watch all over again

Felicity, One Tree Hill, Desperate Housewives, Prison Break

Name 4 places where you have lived

Tilburg (Netherlands), Paramaribo (Suriname) , Dublin (Ireland) , Amsterdam( Netherlands)

Nevaeh at the cental station in Amsterdam

Name 4 of your favorite foods

Saouto soup, teloh (fried casava) with fish (Both Surinamese- Indonesian), chow mein (Surinamese- Chinese ) and hot chicken wings from KFC or the Chinese version.

Name 4 places where you have been on vacation.

Paris, Budapest (Hungary), Paramaribo (Suriname) and Ighiu (Romania)

Me in Ighiu last Summer

Name 4 of your favourite activities with your kids.

Picnic, movie time, going to the beach and going to Mc Donald’s (it makes them so happy and I love that)

On the beach in Ijburg where we live

Name 4 of your favourite pieces of clothing.

I like quite a few items that I own but to pick 4 : Lace top, leopard print top, denim jeans with golden crown on it, denim jeans with some stretch in it.

With my lace top

What are some of your favourite things ? I would love to hear from you.

Wishing you a happy Sunday.

Love,

It's (almost) party time ! (day 14)

2016-05-14T22:08:00.001+01:00

It is going to be Yovannahs birthday soon. She is going to be 7 on 6 June. She has been talking about it for months. It is unbelievable how much birthdays mean for little girls. They always look so much forward to it. I ‘ve always tried to make an effort to give them a nice memorable day too. Because I don’t want to take for granted that God has added another year to their life. Some people unfortunately don’t get the chance to see their child get older and so I want to celebrate their life every year again. And it is always nice for the chidren to feel special on their special day.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to give them a lot of parties. But I always still try to do something small and special like going to Mc Donalds, the movies or swimming, just the girls and I. And I usually have some balloons and decorations up and a cake

Especially Yovannah has not had a lot of parties. She has had two small parties so far with about 2- 4 friends and then her sisters. So it would be nice if she could finally have herself a nice party, a little bigger. I definitely would love to do that for her. But I’m not sure yet if that will be an option. Yovannah has quite some friends at school and also where we live.

We have been thinking of ideas for when we decide to do a party at some location.

The ideas that we like and that her friends would probably like are :

Swimming pool party

A lot of her friends have swimming lessons and my girls have been going to swimming lessons too.

And this party would then be at the place where the girls have their swimming lessons. The prices are 8,50 euro per person, including food and drinks.

Pony party

The smallies have started a course called ; ‘pony buddies’ and they really love horses a lot.

One of her friends is doing horse riding and another one loves horses too.

This party would be at the Kids farm where the smallies do their ‘pony buddies’ course.

I have not looked into information on this yet so I am not sure what the prices are.

Ballorig party

This is a party at an indoor play center. Ixora had a few friends (four) there on her last birthday. And she had a party like this in Ireland before. They are always a big success . And for the parent(s) it is quite easy because the center takes care of everything. The kids play and get drinks and food and they have cake. The prices are from about 10 euro per person.

Another idea would be to just try and do a party at home but even though I used to love organizing parties in the past, I am not sure if I would want to host a party for more than 3 guests. It is a lot of work when you do it at home and just a lot of work doing it alone.

So I think it then would have to be an unofficial party on the afternoon of her birthday and hopefully the weather is good and our bouncy castle has been shipped to us by my mum, so the children can play on that. So the neighbor kids can come and she can ask one friend.

Because I definitely am not looking forward to the stress of a party at home so we will see. I am going to be sure to give her a nice day though whatever we do.

She also really wants to go to Moviepark Germany. She just told me that she would love to do her party there. I guess maybe if we would go as a family but taking kids there is ofcourse not an option.

I am sure that we will find something nice to do and turn it into a memorable day. We will see...

What do you do for the birthdays of your children ? Which of these parties would you prefer ?
I would love to hear from you.

Love,

A day in the life of a single mum. Day 13

2016-05-13T23:00:00.003+01:00

Something seems to be wrong with my charger so I almost did not post today but by Gods grace my laptop managed to get charged a little bit. I already intended to use a post that I wrote last year in December for today so I am not making a lot of changes to it but I will post it mostly as I wrote it down back then.

It was a few days before Sinterklaas, which is a holiday that is really, really big here in Holland. It is unbelievable how much attention it gets and the girls got really hyped up and we had an overload of activities in the period of Sinterklaas. The smallies really believed that Sinterklaas and his petes were kind of real and they had gotten some gift cards and I went online with them to choose gifts that were in the amount of the gift cards. And so on this day I went to the shop to buy the gifts that had been chosen. I was so glad that it worked to select gifts online with Yovannah because she first had set her mind on a much more expensive gift (Her teacher told her weeks before to choose from a toy magazine because it was part of a theme at school) and I was afraid that I had to get it for her to not let her down but luckily she changed her mind when we were looking online. Pff Thank God !

It is done as a time table but I hope that you enjoy reading it.

I would love to hear from you.

On 2 December 2015

6.15 Woke up, not feeling super.

6. 25 Got fruit and water ready for school. Got clothes for the girls for school.

7.15 Took a shower and got ready.

7.40 Got the girls out of bed since they did not get up when I tried to wake them up the first time.

Got the girls ready for school and gave them something to eat.

8.13 Left the house to go to school with the girls

8.28 Arrived at school and dropped Nevaeh off at her class.

8. 30 Rushed to Yovannahs class and helped her and two girls with language games.

9.00 Went back home. Got Nevaehs glasses and eye plaster since we forgot it in the morning . Got bags and gift cards for Intertoys and went back to the school.

10.15 After going into the school and giving Nevaeh her plaster and glasses , I took the bus to the shopping centre. Went to the optician to bring in Nevaehs other glassed to get fixed and to ask about other lenses for me to try on.

11.00 Went into Intertoys for Sinterklaas shopping for the girls! Yay !

11. 30 Left the shop excited and happy that (with a bit of trouble) I found everything from the lists of the girls !! Went to get some money from the machine and then into another shop and then took the bus back home.

1215 Arrived at home and hid the bag with presents upstairs, put some candy and a small present in the shoes from the girls and then left to collect the girls from school.

1245 Rushed home with the small girls. We were getting a delivery and I was not sure at what time.

1300 Back at home and after a few minutes Nevaeh realized that there is something in her shoe. ‘Hey what is that ?’ I acted excited and surprised. ‘They came !’ Yovannah and Nevaeh sais full of excitement. I took some pics and they got the stuff out of their shoes.

Ixora ‘s first reaction. :’that’s not what I asked for.’ I needed to explain to her that Sinterklaas day is on Saturday and that the real presents are always coming on that day.

Read email that delivery is planned between 1523 and 1623.

Started tidying the house, feeling very tired. Took a toilet break and then talked to Ixora about the plans.

1440 Left the house with the girls to go to the library to print off stuff for Ixora’s surprise for a classmate which needs to be finished by tomorrow morning.

1500 Appointment with people who want to help one of the girls with Dutch language improvement.

15.15 Rushed back home. Ixora had left for a gymnastic event called Pieten Gym with a friend.

16.50 Looked something up on internet and the doorbell finally rang for the delivery of the gift for Ixora’s classmate.

1715 Left the house to go grocery shopping with the smallies. A few days earlier, they had left their shoes behind at the shop and now they got their shoes back and got ‘kruidnoten’ and a ‘kwartet’as a little Sinterklaas treat from the shop.

1810 Arrived back home with the groceries. I wanted to unpack when the doorbell rang. : Ixora got back. I unpacked the bags and started cooking. Explained to Ixora that the ‘surprise’ plans need to be adjusted because the pictures turned out smaller and I couldn’t change them because of the appointment that I had afterwards and I had to rush back home for the delivery.

Helped Ixora to make the surprise for her classmate for school. We chose to make a pc and in the box went the gift and a poem as the tradition in Holland.

'Surprise' when it was finished

19.15 Washed some dishes while the bottom of the spaghetti almost started to burn. Got the top of the food out and put it in a big plate. Served dinner, put the bottom part of the food for myself. It luckily still tasted good.

2030 Kids had their chocolate for 2 December from the chocolate advent calendar and we got ready for bed. I got Nevaehs star chart and gave her a smiley face for listening better at school.

Time for bed !!

That was my day on 2 December.

It was a very busy day. Luckily not all days are like this but I must say that life is surely a lot busier and I tend to be more easily overwhelmed since I am a single mum.

But by the grace of God, I manage.

He sustains me. Glory to His name.

Love,

One of my favourite poems BEDM Day 12

2016-05-12T21:24:00.001+01:00

Today the original topic of the Blogging Every day challenge is poetry. And since I have written some poetry of my own in the past, I thought that I would just share a poem that I recently wrote.

But I read it again today after not reading it for a few months and it does not seem suitable for my blog.

Other poems that I remember that I wrote, are mostly in Dutch, so I decided to just share one of my favourite poems today.

I read it in the book of Purity and Passion from Elisabeth Ellliot, a book about the true story of two people who love eachother but are asked by God to wait till they are allowed by Him to finally be together.

It is a really beautiful, touching story about putting God first in your life and mostly wanting Gods will for your life, no matter the cost.

Jim Elliot mentions the poem in one of his letters that he wrote to Elizabeth and which Elisabeth later quoted in her book.

And beneath his letter in her book, Elisabeth wrote down the poem.

It really touched my heart and it still means a lot to me today.

I have tried to find it back for some time but I think that I always looked it up in Dutch and I could not find it and today I searched in English and finally found it ! I found a sample from the book on Amazon with the poem and the name of the writer.

I then searched again on internet and found out that the name of the poem is:

Night song at Amalfi and it is written by Sara Teasdale.

I asked the heaven of stars,

what I should give my love

He answered me with silence

Silence above

I asked the darkened sea

Down where the fishes go--

It answered me with silence,

Silence below--

Oh I could give him weeping

Or I could give him a song

But how can I give silence

My whole life long ?

Just imagine loving someone and not being able to talk to them, maybe because they don't want to talk to you or some other reason. And you would have to give them silence for the rest of your life ?

That's a very long time !

Jim and Elisabeth end up together and get married but unfortunately their time together is short because he dies in the mission field.

What do you think about the poem ? Do you have a favourite poem ?

I would love to hear from you.

Love,

What Kids Wore Wednesday; Kitty love (day 11)

2016-05-11T20:37:00.001+01:00

Ir's Wednesday so it's time for another Kids outfit post.

As I mentioned in my last What Kids Wore Wednesday post, Nevaeh really loves bunnies a lot and she loves clothes with bunnies on them. In the same way Yovannah really loves cats and clothes with cats on them. We mostly buy clothes from H & M because they have cute items of reasonable quality and low prices and we had gotten a gift card from H & M a while back so we are used to shopping there.

They happen to have a lot of cats and bunnies in their collection for some reason, so the girls could not be more pleased with shopping there. They get to pick their own clothes so when Yovannah saw this cute black skirt, she really had to have it. I love it too. It is made out of ‘leather look’ fabric and it has this cute face on it and on the top of the skirt there are two ears sticking out.

In the pictures she is wearing it with a blue/grey-ish top with a cat on it and dark grey tights with a black stripy pattern on them.

Skirt : H & M

Top : H & M

Tights: HEMA

Headband : H & M

Are you sharing a post with your kids outfit as well ? I would love to see it.
Please share it by posting your link in the comments.

I also would love to know what you think about Yovannah's outfit.

Love,

One of my favourite things from Holland

2016-05-10T21:04:00.001+01:00

I have not been doing much of the original topics from the BEDM challenge so far, because I had other posts or because I had nothing to write regarding the topic of the day. But since I am living in Europe I thought it would be nice to do a post about it. Only I thought that it was for today and not yesterday. So I actually missed it. L But I decided to do a Europe related post anyway.

One of my favourite things from living in Holland again, would be that I can get my hands on a bag of liquorice much easier .

When I was living in Ireland I really missed liquorice and when a friend would go to the Netherlands for a holiday I would always ask them to bring me back some liquorice. I would be sooo happy when I finally got to eat some liquorice again. I remember once missing it so much that I bought a little bag of liquorice online for 5 euro and then to find out that they were soft and salty ones. Those definitely were not my favourite but I guess it was better than nothing at all.

Dutch liquorice, I have noticed is really something that you either love or hate. And I am really one of the liquorice lovers. There are a lot of different ones and a lot of different tastes. But the ones that I like the most are the coins. There are also different brands of liquorice and the tastes differs so that is the same for Dutch coins. I like the most brands I think but I like the taste of the Kleene coins and the Venco ones the most.

I also like the taste of the liquorice called “Brussels manneke’ , liquorice made in the shape of a little boy like the statue located in Brussels. I have been looking for these for a while and could not find them anymore. So I was so excited to see a pack of them in a shop the other day. So I really had to have them. Ofcourse I finished them in no time. Those packs are really way too small. LOL

From my girls, my oldest is the only one who likes liquorice a little bit and then actually only really the Kleene coins so I also don’t really have to share them with anyone when I have a pack of them. So they are really my special mommy candies. Wonderful !

Have you ever tasted Dutch liquorice ? Do you like or dislike them ? Is there any treat that you like which the rest of the house can’t be bothered with ? Have you been in Holland ? What is one of your favourite things from here ?

I would love to hear from you.

Love.

Hello sunshine (day 9)

2016-05-09T22:57:00.000+01:00

Hello Monday.

Hello lovely summer weather.

Hello swimming pool.

Hello breakfasts in bed.

No not for me but for my oldest daughter. Unfortunately, she has been ill for a few weeks already and I sometimes wake her up to eat so she can take some medicine

Hello anti biotics for Ixora.
Praying she will get better and won't need these anymore.

Hello beach times.

On Mothers' day finally got to visit the beach here in Ijburg where we live.

Hello bike without stabilizers.

The stabilizers have come off of Yovannahs bike so she has decided to try riding without them now and I think that she’ll succeed in it soon.

Hello Mothers' day gifts.

My ex husband never did a lot for Mothers'day so it is like this is the year that I got the most things somehow. Nevaeh really could not wait to give me the gift she made for me at school . She was so excited about her gift and I must say ; it is adorable. A cute jar with candy in it. The girls have also been helped with other gifts by two of my sisters. (really sweet of them ) I also got roses and chocolate in church.

Hello to the girls helping out more on Mothers' day.

Hello brownie butterfly cakie.

The girls wanted to make something but I did not have a cake tin so we had to use the butterfly shapes.

Hello microwave and bowls with porridge

My sister got us a microwave and I helped Nevaeh heat up some soup that she poured out for me in a bowl on Mothers' day. And Ixora has been having bowls of porridge which are so easy to make in a microwave.

Hello school times.

The holidays are over and we are going back to a routine.

Hello yummy muesli.

Hello sunshine.

Please stay for quite a while. We are really enjoying you an awful lot.

What are you saying Hello to today/this week ?

I would love to hear from you.

Love,

Chan