Zes jaar oud!

So we now have a very big six year old in our house. For Olive it was a very long time coming. For at least the last three months there was much discussion in our house around the topic of the 6th birthday. How many more days until my birthday? I’d like this cake / that cake and it’s going to be this theme / that theme for my party – I think you get the picture.

I love the theme that Olive finally settled on – children of the world. It just sums up perfectly for me one of the big rewards of this expat life. Both Olive and Edie are so interested in different cultures and languages, and are now so much more aware of the incredibly diverse world that we live in. Attending an international school just highlights this further.

I gave Olive the option of getting a professionally designed invitation – so easy to do and not that expensive if you use a site like Etsy – but she insisted that the design be hers. I was really proud of the effort she put into her invitation and we were all thrilled with the result.

First she drew the globe, then the children. She cut everything out herself then we scanned it into the computer. Voila! An original Olive design.

The other thing that Olive was determined to do was have her party at home. With 24 children on the guest list this was going to be something of a challenge but the teacher in me rose to the occasion and planning it all was lots of fun. The party itself was lots of fun too but I very much needed several glasses of wine come Saturday evening and I think it’s safe to say that’s the last big birthday party we host at home!

Here are some photos from the day Olive turned six and the big children of the world party.

Zes jaar oud vandaag! Hip hip hoera!

One of the great things about birthdays now is the parcels that come from New Zealand - especially when there are chocolate fish in them! Thanks Granny 🙂

A birthday hug for big sis.

Olive loved the fact that this year she could read all her birthday cards herself.

This is all she asked for -a kids cook book.

Berry pancakes for breakfast are a birthday tradition in our house.

The day of Olive's birthday was spent trying out a recipe from her new cook book. Just like her Mum, she went straight for a sweet one.

With Richard still in the States, cake making duties fell to me. My husband sets the bar pretty high when it comes to birthday cake making so I was feeling the pressure!

With a theme of children of the world the cake could really only be one thing - the world! Gulp!

All I can say is thank god for ready to roll icing and the internet.

Not looking too shabby.

The finished cake. The flags represent all the different countries in attendance at the party.

There was a wee bit of cupcake baking too.

Ready for the party to start. Fingers crossed!

Edie and Olive - children of the world.

They've even got the whole world in their hands - sorry, couldn't resist!

Neither of the girls wanted to wear their Maori costumes so I was left to fly the flag for Aotearoa.

Olive asked her friends to wear something from their culture. Here's Milla in her Aussie Rules t-shirt - brilliant!

We had a cowboy...

and a statue of liberty! She even had the torch.

Captain America came too.

Crowd control.

Working on the birthday flag that we got the children to decorate for Olive.

Kinderen van de wereld.

We are so happy to have Richard home for a couple of weeks and are planning a little trip away this weekend. Hope you are all well and we’re sending lots of love xxx

The big F – or forty, fit, feestjes, friends and food

It seems that my life is revolving around the letter F at the moment – and because of this I have been very busy. Being busy is a great thing although my blog has suffered and I do miss having time to write. It doesn’t help that Richard is having a spate of prolific blog writing at the moment -however I can’t see myself sitting writing at 4am which is when he’s usually tapping away!

Turning forty was my first big f. Not content with one party, I threw a second one here in Antwerp. As my birthday fell on a Saturday evening it was a perfect excuse for a bit of a do.

The official 40 portrait. Saturday 4th of February, 2012.

I had a great night surrounded by new friends from all over the world – the complete opposite of my birthday last year. It was a good time to look back and reflect how far I’d come since that gloomy Friday last year when I sat, very glum in front of the telly, scoffing the birthday tart the girls had picked out for me at the local bakery.

I made my own cake this year - Nigella's pomegranate jewel cake - lekker!

The wine flowed, the conversation flowed, Richard made a beautiful speech, I gave a pretty good rebuttal (!) and I managed to kick on till nearly 2am. (Those of you who know me very well will recognise what a feat this is. I am, after all, the woman who suggested an end time of 9:30pm for my hen’s night!)

Doing a bit of speech making.

Birthday parties or feestjes have been an almost weekly occurrence since we got back to Antwerp. This does mean that I am practically on first name terms with the staff at In den Olifant (gorgeous Antwerp toy store), but mostly it demonstrates just how many great friendships that we, as a family, are making.

The Mega Mindy twins with birthday girl Milla.

Mask making at Charles' birthday.

Even Mum and Dad got in on the act.

Making friends with Natacha, Charles' precious baby sister.

The big 4 year old.

In addition to all our new friendships we were lucky last week to have time with an old friend who lives on this side of the world. I’ve known Davina since my early teaching days – nearly 20 years ago eek –  and she’s now based in London with her partner and baby. Davina and Jenson came and spent a few days with us and we had lots of fun taking them to our favourite places. It was really nice also to watch Olive and Edie with a young baby. Olive in particular was so interested and helpful – quite the mother hen.

Having fun at Aquatopia.

We also made sure Jenson's visit was very educational. Here O and E are instructing him in the all important art of iPad usage. J is for Jenson!

Olive in Mummy mode 🙂

So now to fit and food…and really what they are all about is yet another f word – focus. Our life in Belgium affords me a very great gift – time – and this year my goal is to put that time to good use. Two goals I want to achieve are getting fit and working towards improving our family diet. I’m running and getting back into weight training with the aim of doing the 5k race that is part of the Antwerp 10 mile event in April. With a friend I’ve made here, I’m doing an online course focussed on whole food. You might remember my earlier post where I revealed my vegetable deficient past! I’m hoping this course will be a good way to get some more plant based food onto our table – it’ll be just like the picture below!!

I suspect members of my family are engaging in some serious laughter and choking on their respective hot beverages right about now!

And f….inally – the other thing I’ve done is join the PTA – I’ve actually wound up as co-chair in fact. I was struggling with an f association for this – best I can come up with is there are f…ive of us on the committee!

Take care everyone. xxx

Birthday Part Two

So yesterday Olive officially turned five and, unlike most mornings, she was the first one up – no surprises why!

Presents! Poor old Edie was gagging to open "just one Olive"!

Granny got me a very cool clock for my new room. Instead of a cuckoo, an elephant pops out and makes a trumpeting sound.

Ooooooooo Nintendo.

This is a story that we read at school. Juf Greet told Mum I really liked it so she got me a copy. Thanks Mum.

Mum's friend Alix made this cool tshirt for me. Fellow kiwis - particularly you Wellingtonians - will understand how cool this is.

There was only one thing that would cut the mustard for breakfast today:

Mmmmm - berry pancakes. Just like we used to have at Elements Cafe in Lyall Bay.

Because we hadn’t been able to take our own cake to the party in the park last Saturday we wanted to make our own one to have at Olive’s birthday dinner. I decided to stick with the do it yourself theme of the party invitations and let Olive decorate the cake herself. You might remember seeing in a couple of blogs the beautifully decorated biscuits made by my friend Laurie. She told me where she got all her supplies and I made a visit to Maya’s on Kasteelpleinstraat and came home with a whole lot of icings, edible glitters, sugar decorations and the all important candles.

Waiting to be adorned. I used Nigella's old fashioned chocolate cake recipe from the Feast book. So easy - no sifting or creaming. Just throw all the ingredients into a processor and blend into a batter. A piece of cake you could say!

Now for the fun part!

I didn't think Edie was going to get a look in when it came time to decorate, but Olive was very good about sharing the job with her zusje.

Voila - the finished masterpiece.

Very proud of her handiwork...and trying not to drop the plate!

We had a special guest for dinner. Mike from Taura NZ was visiting Taura Europe for a couple of weeks so we invited him to join in the celebration. It’s the second time we’ve hosted staff from Taura NZ and it’s really nice to have some time with people from home. It’s something we’re definitely going to keep doing as there are often staff from NZ working at the factory in Belgium. And I have to say Mike’s rendition of Happy Birthday to You was excellent!

Klap! - blow!

We finished off Olive’s birthday celebrations with a trip this afternoon to see K3 live in concert, performing their Alice in Wonderland show. When we arrived in Belgium, one of Richard’s colleagues suggested introducing the girls to K3 as a way to get them used to hearing the dutch language. Let’s just say Olive and Edie took to K3 like ducks to water.
K3 are something of a phenomenon in Belgium – they are the princesses of “kleuterpop”. They’ve been together since 1999, have released 9 albums, made 3 movies and have a tv show. When I was hosting the weekly coffee morning for the english speaking parent’s group, I had a K3 dvd on to entertain some of the littlies. An English woman who hadn’t heard of K3 turned to me and said, “they’re very Eurovision Song Contest aren’t they?”
So it was no surprise when I looked on Wikipedia tonight and found that K3 were on the shortlist to be the Belgian entrants for the Eurovision Contest in 1999. Those of you who grew up watching the Eurovision Contest – remember Buck’s Fizz and “Making Your Mind Up”??!! – will have an idea of how K3 sound. I know by now you will be desperate to find out more about Karen, Kristal and Josje (pronounced yosha), so I suggest visiting http://www.k3.be, click on clips and then click on Mamase – a particular favourite of the girls – the melody of which Richard thinks has been stolen from that Nik Kershaw classic The Riddle.

Kah Drie - how we say it here in Belgium.

We all enjoyed the show – particularly the cool 3d effects – and then it was home to put on the CD of K3 Alice In Wonderland and relive it all over again!
Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes and wonderful gifts. Hard to believe my baby is vijf!
Lots of love to you all xxx

Gelukkig Verjaardag Olijf!

Feest tijd! Party Time!

And so the day of the big party arrived.
It was quite overcast and more on the cool side, but Olive and Edie were determined to have “bare arms”. Bare arms is of paramount importance in our house at the moment. I think for two little girls who lived through two winters in a row – one of them particularly harsh – being able to wear bare arms is their badge of survival, their reward for all those very cold days, and of course it is the ultimate sign that summer is on the way.

The birthday girl - with aforementioned bare arms.

Bare arms number two.

Zusters.

We loaded up the loot bags, Dad did a bit of last minute baking and then we were all ready to head to Middleheim Park.

Loot bags all lined up.

Dad whipped up a batch of good old kiwi ricebubble cake to give to the partygoers.

Olive’s friend Aleksandra was already waiting for us when we got to the park. She has been like a mother hen to Olive – greeting her every day with hugs, always wanting to hold her hand and looking out for her in the playground. The other guests arrived and we all headed into the cafe to feast on pannenkoeken and wafels.

Aleksandra.

Chloe, Brenna, Edie, Pia, Charles, Marie, Noel and Olive waiting for their goodies.

One very happy almost five year old.

Pia and Edie tucking into their pannenkoeken.

Noel had no trouble cleaning up his wafel.

The ice cream cake or ijstaart.

No problem blowing them out this year.

By this time the kids had had enough of sitting around inside and outside the clouds had cleared and the sun was shining. Time to hit the playground.

Olive and Pia bouncing around.

Noel speeding down the slide.

Aleksandra and Edie.

Marie, Pia, Aleksandra, Olive and Colin lining up for the flying fox.

If you’d have told me this time last year that we’d be celebrating Olive’s next birthday in Antwerp, with children from seven different nationalities, I’d have shaken my head in disbelief. Just goes to show you never know what life has in store for you!
As for the birthday girl – she thought her party was “lovely” – you can’t ask for much better than that!
Stay tuned for birthday part two later in the week.
Lots of love to you all xxx

We got our first “Ja”!!!!!

One very excited Olive and one very relieved Mummy 🙂

Vijf – Five

Olive is turning five next month. A very important milestone for her and for us as a family. I have to admit to having had feelings of sadness about this birthday however, as being in Belgium has somewhat dulled it’s momentousness (yes that is a word!) Turning five does not hold the same significance here as it does in New Zealand.
Stories are starting to come in from home about Olive’s friends celebrating the big 5 and embarking on that universal rite of passage – the first day of primary school. Friends from her Montessori class, the Plunket groups we were part of, children we met as newborns in our antenatal group and friends we made during our five years in Wadestown, are all blowing out five candles, donning their backpacks and heading through the doors of the New Entrants classroom. Here in Belgium, Olive won’t start primary or lagere school, until September 2012 when she will be nearly 6 and a half.
Olive of course is not having any of these thoughts – she is just super excited about having a birthday! So I’m taking a leaf out of her book, telling myself to get over it and make the day momentous regardless.
Thus a birthday party is being planned and all good birthday parties start with an invitation. I was sent into town with strict instructions about princesses and ballerinas and maybe Hello Kitty as a backup if the princesses and ballerinas weren’t forthcoming – mummy was feeling the pressure! Unfortunately the princesses and ballerinas weren’t forthcoming but I managed to stumble across something that I thought would do the trick.
Here in Antwerp we have the most wonderful toy store which goes by the name In Den Olifant or In The Elephant, and I wasn’t surprised to find just what I needed here…

Do it yourself birthday invitations!

For a girl who in the words of her Juf or teacher could “spend all day drawing, colouring, painting, collaging, creating etc” it was the perfect choice and yesterday she spent a busy afternoon adding her own special touch to what was in the kit.

If only there had been things like this when I was a kid.

Only the girly colours made it to the final cut - sorry orange/oranje and red/rode.

Hard at work. Edie was allowed to decorate one of the discarded ones!

Olive has chosen to invite children we have met through the Expat group I joined and also five children from her class. Because of this I wanted the invitations to be written in Dutch. Luckily In Den Olifant provided an easy solution. They had some very small and simple invitations with all the important info ie. you have been invited to, where and when, RSVP etc written in Dutch. I cut these out, glued them onto the cards from the kit and Volia! we had our Flemish invites.
I really hope that all the children from her class will come. Olive really deserves a great celebration after all the bravery she has shown since starting kleuter school and the fact that she chose five kindjes from her class shows how well she has done at fitting in and making friends. She was so excited as she headed off to school this morning clutching the precious cards.

The finished products - complete with handwritten labels.

Ready to make some deliveries.

All fingers and toes crossed for five Ja’s please!
Take care everyone 🙂

Verjaardag en bakker.

Today it was my birthday. To be honest a bit of a hard one – not just because I’m on the very slippery slope to the big four o! It is extra hard on days like today to be so far from family, friends and even my husband. Despite that physical distance however, the wonders of modern technology ensured that I was celebrated from afar. Thank goodness for Skype, Facebook, text messages and the good old telephone. When my parents emigrated to New Zealand from Scotland in the 60’s they had to wait weeks for very precious letters and only 40 years later the girls and I can sit at the computer and see family and friends as if they are in the very same room. How lucky we are.
In addition to the developments in telecommunication I had my own two precious girls to help make the day very special. Olive secretly selected one of her toys and very carefully wrapped it for me so I had something to open when I woke up.

"Don't look Mum!"

Very pleased with her efforts.

We made a plan to go to the local bakery after school and choose a cake for my birthday. Olive’s theme in class at the moment is the “bakker” – they do a different theme every couple of weeks – and yesterday she proudly showed me the baker’s hat she had made – complete with cookies and small sweets stuck to it. Not only was today special because of my birthday, but also because it was the day of the “bakker bezoek” or baker visit. I suspected this would involve a trip to the local bakery, but unlike NZ, there were no permission slips needed or calls for parent help. Because parents are not “encouraged” (!) to be in the classroom at all, what happens in there can be something of a mystery!
When I arrived to pick up Olive at the end of the day all the children in her class were sitting waiting to be picked up dressed in their baker’s hats. They had indeed been on a trip to the local bakery – wearing their baker’s hats – and had helped to roll dough, make cupcakes and cookies and see what other jobs the baker does. Olive was thrilled with the trip and super excited to be going back to the same bakery, white hat firmly on her head, to choose something special for Mum.

Olive the bakker.

Loving the decorations on the hat.

Inside the bakery, bakker Olive drew a lot of attention from a cluster of old ladies at the counter. There was much smiling and chattering in Dutch to which I just nodded and smiled! Olive chose me a scrummmy looking cherry flan I guess you’d call it which we whipped home for candles and singing.

My Belgian birthday cake.

Olive doing a great job on camera duty.

and then did an equally great job at cake cutting.

And so ends my first birthday in Belgium. And the end of our first stint all on our own. We are very much looking forward to having Dad back tomorrow afternoon but are pretty proud of ourselves at having survived for two weeks on our own.

We did it!

Despite the lack of people to celebrate my birthday with there was certainly no lack of love -clearly evident in the picture Olive drew me at school today.

"I made it for you Mummy."

A very big thank you for your messages and birthday wishes.
Lots of love to you all xxx

Zaterdag

Richard went back to New Zealand yesterday. He’ll be working in Tauranga for two weeks. It was very hard on all of us Croad girls to see him go. It’s not just that we will miss him, it’s the thought of him being in New Zealand and the rest of our little family not being there too. I have to admit to being very jealous!
So our first day flying solo was a bit of a drizzly one. Both the girls have been fighting colds and are pretty tired after their big weeks at school, so a quiet Saturday at home was called for. Olive came home from school yesterday very excited because they had watched an episode of Pippi Longstocking. Pippi Longstocking was a favourite in our house when I was growing up so it’s pretty special to be able to share in that enjoyment with my own children. Last night we all jumped into bed together and read the first chapter from the gorgeous new edition of Pippi, illustrated by Lauren Child of Charlie and Lola fame.

The fabulous Lauren Child's Pippi.

This morning after waking up we had another chapter before breakfast. In it Pippi bakes a batch of ginger snaps – rolling the dough out on the floor.

Biscuits taste best when they've been rolled out on the floor!

Pippi’s ginger snaps inspired our own spot of Zaterdag morning baking. We went for something a bit easier – vanilla biscuits. When the biscuits were out of the oven, O and E performed their decorating duties armed with icing pens and big smiles.

Edie's biscuits.

My own little Pippi!

Olives koekjes.

Pippi number two.

So with the help of a much loved story we have survived our first day without dad – only 13 more to go!!

Take care and love to you all xxx

Happy Birthday Edie!

Our wonderful Edie Cate turned three yesterday. Although to be honest it feels like she has been 3 for ages! She woke up very excited and attacked her pile of presents – very kindly letting big sis help with the unwrapping duties.

Ripping into it.

Yo Gabba Gabba was again requested as the theme of this year’s cake although what with all the new things to deal with it wasn’t quite the work of art last year’s cake was!

Not a smurf vampire - actually Toodee from Yo Gabba Gabba.

Edie’s favourite present was her Mega Mindy suit – you might remember Mega Mindy from my last post. It was worn all day and to bed too.

Mega Edie!

We had a birthday morning tea. Edie’s friend Charles from school came with his Mum and Dad and our new friends Eilish and Dillon. There was dancing, food and a little spot of singstar.

A mega puff!

Charles enjoying the singing sisters.

In the evening we were invited to dinner with two families we have met in Antwerp. When googling something to do with Antwerp and families on the net I discovered a blog written about an American family living in Antwerp. I left a comment on the blog and made contact with the blog’s writer Laurie. It turns out that she already knew Tracie and Hugh, another couple we had met at the Christmas Party I wrote about in an earlier post. So we all met up at Laurie’s house, Richard cooked a yummy dinner and 6 children had a great time. There were even more presents for Mega Edie. It was a lovely evening – we were so warmly welcomed. I was worried that Edie’s birthday would be tough because it was our first family birthday away from NZ. It turned out to be a lovely day and Edie was very happy.

Our beautiful three year old 🙂