Electricity: How Riley understands it

Brad took Riley to go and watch the fireworks at the royal palace on the 21st, in celebration of National Belgian day. To say she loved it would be an understatement!

On Sunday we happen to drive past the palace & she was very excited to tell us about the fireworks:

" Hey daddy this is where we came for the fireworks hey? Mommy the man from the electricity cut the electricity to make it all dark so we could see the fireworks. When it was finished he fixed it all again with some cello tape" (scotch tape / sticky tape)

Electricity::

Embarrassed Mom... very shallow I know

Despite the risk of you'll all thinking that I'm a terrible mother I'm going to admit this...

even though I love them to death, I'm sometimes ashamed of being seen with them....

Ok, let me try and explain: They are loud & pick their noses (I know all kids do but it's still disgusting!)

Riley has the worst dress sense in the whole entire world. I know all kids like to dress themselves & can wear pretty strange combinations but I swear my daughter has no cooking clue of what goes together. Most of the time she looks like a what I imagine a chameleon on a smarties box would look like. According to her, the more colors & motives you wear the better. The other day she left the house wearing a beige, pink & black pair of cords under a denim skirt with a army green trim and a picture of Winnie the Pooh, a black Adidas t-shirt with Adidas in gold lettering. A blue & orange rain coat & to round it all of, a pair of pink & grey shoes. Seriously would you not be embarrassed to be seen with that??

She's also cut her own hair, way beyond me or any hairdresser being able to fix it without resorting to cutting it all short (which her dad threatened to do).

Rourke at least has a better sense of style & not only because I still pick out most of his clothes cause even when he dresses himself he does a pretty good job. If only now I could do something about the dirt.

Wait I haven't mentioned the dirt yet have I?

In Belgium kids are clean. I mean at any time of the day, at school, or in the park the kids are clean. My friends kids & strangers kids they all clean. Then come along my two & it's just shocking! When we leave the house & you tell Riley to get her shoe's she does, only she carries them in her hand not on her feet. Then they also lie down in the middle of the shop or on the side walk or climb up everything. This is just what they do, they like to touch everything & to my absolute horror put things in their mouths aaarhg!!!

I've tried to explain about germ & dog pooh (which is every where Brussels being a lot like Paris in that regard), yet they just can't seem to help themselves.

I actually can't believe that they are not in hospital dying (I'm very happy about it, just can't understand it). They are in fact, very healthy....

All I'm saying is just once do I want to go out with my kids & be proud of how they look, so people can admire them. Very shallow I know.

The joy of summer holidays...?

I never thought I would be saying this: "I'm bored out of my mind at work" It's been a very hectic & busy 14 weeks & now that the project wave is over I have 2 more weeks to kill at work before my long awaited holidays. Which is going to be for the whole of August.
Yeah, I know, eat your heart out!!!

However, until that time I have to keep busy at work making sure that everybody on my old team is implementing the new way of working sticking to the new procedures etc etc. I have discovered that I thrive on urgency and stress here at work cause when there is no stress
I find it very hard to stay motivated. I really do prefer things to be busy & hectic & crazy, (at work not at home).

At home I want the total opposite

At home I want things to be calm and quiet & ordered. Not that that ever happens. Not with 2 little energy filled monsters running around and jumping up & down.

I'm not sure how Brad is going to survive this week. Since my mom will be in South Africa till Sunday at 14:12 (yeah he's counting the hours), he has not 2 but 3 kids he's looking after. Yesterday, they found some eucalyptus oil, meant for the steamer and decided to "oil" the floor.
Our whole apartment was still smelling like it when I got home last night.

Then there was the incident of the pudding.... They have a VeggiTale DVD with a recipe for Petunia's worm pudding. They decided that they were going to make it, so wile we were having a lie-in (yes in general we manage to have those at least 1 day of the weekend) they watched the
recipe and copied it. Only, we didn't have all the ingredients and it was all a bit quick for themm never the less, they brought their creation for us to taste.

Here is how they made it: 2 eggs
countless spoons of Nesquick??
milk
water
sugar
not so fresh cream that I forgot we actually still had in the fridge
all mixed together in a bowl

They both were very disappointed when I declined to taste it and proceded to poured it all down the toilet before flushing it away. Luckily I could tell them is was because the cream was off.

Brad's taken the 3 of them to Plankendael today & is going to meet of with a friend with a daughter as old as Riley & Brandon so at least I don't have to wonder about what the house might smell or look like when I get home tonight. Only have to worry if my husband is still going to be sane....

School Holidays & Birthdays

School holidays have started and the kids are loving them. They've spent the last 2 days with my mom and will spend tomorrow with her as well cause she is leaving for South Africa tomorrow night for 3 long weeks. Okay, so both her and my dad think "3 short" weeks since they haven't seen each other since January, but how o how am I going to live without my babysitter??





Don't get me wrong I'm fully aware of the fact that it sounds terrible, however in my defence, I live for my Saturday nights. It's the one night I get to go out with my friends, have fun and not worry about getting home on time and then to sleep in the next morning (not that I manage to do that too often, the habit of getting up early is just too engrained). Also, both she and the kids love their Saturday nights & Sunday mornings together.





We have a totally crammed weekend ahead of us. It's Brad's birthday - the BIG 30!!


We have a friend coming to visit us from Holland, been invited to a wedding, a 1st birthday party, not to mention the party that we've arranged for him. We have another friend who's birthday is on Saturday as well. To make life easier we've decided to have a combined party to avoid forcing people to choose who's party to attend. We starting off with dinner at Caprice accross the road from the Bok & then the party will move back accross the road. We have another friend who will DJ so I think it will be a blast.





Now, if only I can come up with an idea for what to buy the man. Sure he's given me hints: a mustang, or a motorbike, preferably a Harley Davidson... doesn't ask much does he?





Rourke recently asked for a hair cut and explained to Brad exactly what he wanted.....

Since the haircut we have to "do" his hair every morning to make sure it stands just right.