Last Queensday

On April 30th we celebrated our last Queensday. Next year it'll be Kingsday, which will be celebrated on a different date..
Kinda weird, since I've celebrated Queensdag since I was a little girl, actually: Since I was born...

Because of the coronation of our King, there were some extra festivities on the days prior.

Joshua's daycare invited all the kinds and parents/grandparents for a High-tea.

We decorated a pictureframe, had our picture taken and ate lots of sweets...
Joshua even played with the big boys...
I got lots of compliments on Joshua's crown, which I crocheted using this tutorial I found on Pinterest.

Tradition on Queensday are thriftmarkets. In Almere these start the evening before, so I went thriftshopping with Elisabeth and Rebekka. I only went for about an hour and a half, and haven't seen 3/4 of the market, but I scored BIGtime...!

Queensday itself was spent in Harderwijk, more thirifting, with my mom and cousin this time...

Love, Caroline

Ripple blanket

Last year I found a tutorial for a ripple blanket on Attic24... I was instantly in love and wanted to make an big blanket for Joshua, for when he get's a big-boy bed (that gives me PLENTY of time to finish it!)...

I started a test piece, which was really easy. I just started crocheting then, and it looked really hard, but really isn't....


















After the testpiece, I felt confident, I picked 4 colors (initially 5, but the brown took away the vibrancy of the other colors...) and started crocheting. I can't remember how many stitches I chained and I made a few mistakes ending rows, so counting won't be really helpful... But believe me, there are a LOT!
The blanket is about 1,5 meters wide.

Progress is slow, I haven't crocheted a single row half of the spring and all summer, but I've picked it up again when the days started getting shorter and colder...
It is getting large enough that I can drape it over my legs and feel all warm and cozy while I work on more rows...
I intend to make it about two meters long, so when Joshua is all grown up he can still snuggle up under it...

Currently working on ripple number 23

















Love, Caroline

Sunday Recap #3

This week:
- My monday at work was a very pleasant surprise...
My new duopartner prepped everything for me, so I could really easily start the week with my our kids. There was a nice list of important stuff, the craftsupplies were ready and she switched names on the tasklist for me...

- My new boots arrived. I was a little bit weary about the size, but they're okay. I do have blisters after wearing them for one whole day. The kids at school really liked them too.

- I made arrangements with Andries' parents, for them to babysit Joshua every monday. They offered a few times and I didn't think they were really serious but they were.
I'm soooo grateful that they want to do this, which means Joshua gets to grow up and spend loooots of time with his grandparents.
Now to figure out a way for my mom to spend more time with our little guy, but that shouldn't be a big problem...

- I didn't read any books, too busy with other stuff...

- Rebekka and Sietse came over for a visit. Sietse playes with Joshua's Fisher Price garage and house. And Rebekka and I talked about lots of things...

- I recieved an e-mail from the lady who sold me the bathseat last week. Her husband gave it away, so the returned me my money.
I searched for another one on Marktplaats and I found lots, placed a bid on a bathseat with more play options and the next day I recieved an e-mail that I could buy this one.
I payed immediately and this seat was sent to us.
The day it came in the mail, I put Joshua in the bathtub in his new seat and he loved it!

- We went shopping for some babysupplies to leave at Andries' parents. A bottle, a pacifier (I <3 oma), a bib (I <3 opa), daipers, a bottle of organic juice (diksap), some organic fruitpurees and some milkpowderjars.

- We did some more work on the bathroom. Still a WIP, so no pictures...

- We removed 6 of the glass shelves that were in our hallway and had our Citroën modelcars on it. I'm in the process of photographing them, so I can put them on Marktplaats.
We're just done with them...

- My mom was admitted to the hospital. She hadn't been able to eat a normal meal in about three weeks and kept throwing up or at least feel nauseous. She had a lot of pain in her stomach.
To make a long story short: they removed het gall-bladder this Friday. It was inflamed and full of galstones.
She was released today, and has to take it veeeery easy. But the pain is gone and she can eat again, albeit small portions...

- This afternoon Andries' parents came to pick up Joshua (they were in Almere, so it saved us a drive to Putten) and now it's just the two of us at home...
It's kind of strange, no evening bottle, no bedtime songs, no watching him sleep... Just quiet....
Andries has already phoned his parents to hear if the little man is settled in....

So, that was my week...
How was yours?

Love,
Caroline

PS I also had a conversation with someone over the phone, which I'm absolutely ecstatic about, but I can't give any details about...! You have NO IDEA how hard it is to keep my mouth shut... ! ! !

Very sad Christmas....

Dear readers....
For everyone who has been waiting for my give-away, I'm sorry...
My grandma passed away very suddenly, about two-and a half weeks ago, at the age of (almost) 83.

She was brought to the hospital on friday afternoon with stomach pains and signs of dehydration.
Her bloodpressure suddenly dropped friday evening, so I picked up my mom in Harderwijk and we rushed to the hospital in Amersfoort.
When we got there she seemed to be doing a bit better, but the situation still wasn't very good...
Saturday they figured out that the sitiuation was so bad, that she wouldn't leave the hospital alive this time...
Sunday afternoon she passed away, surrounded by her loved ones....

I'm very sad and feel kind of empty, since grandma didn't want to go, but her body just couldn't take any more...
I'm grateful though, I went to see her  two weeks before she got sick, and I took my little man with me... I'll never forget "grote oma's" face when I held him in front of her... She was so proud of this new great-grandchild... :,-)

As you can understand, I didn't (and still really don't) feel like blogging.
And as my give-away is a Christmas-related gift, this one won't be posted.

I'm thinking of something else to make, so I can do a give-away in the new year....

Love, Caroline

WW: Sleeping in the RingSling

Gifts

Last time I told you I was planning on making a gift for my materrnity help.
Well, I finished it last Tuesday and mailed it to her, together with two Delfts Blond mugs.
(Helma, if you read this and don't want to know what the mugs cost, don't click the link! ;-P)
Today she told me she got her gifts (and she loved them), so now I can show you what I made her.

I had quite a hard time packing it, since it turned out so great, I really didn't want to give it away...
Just joking....!
But I do love the result. It seems my scrapinspiration is back, because lots of other ideas are floating around in my head...!

For this project I used only October Afternoon papers, Report Card and Seaside to be precise. I love this brand and if my inspiration is truly back, I need to get some more ! ! !

Embellishments are: Creamotion, Amarican Crafts, Maya Road, Tim Holtz, Pink Paisley, Bo Bunny, Making Memories, Luxe Designs and Xenos.

I hope I'll have more to show soon, but for now I'm just trying to find a routine which allows me to be creative and maybe do some posts on more random stuff...

Love,

Caroline




PS: For some reason, I can't seem to get the lay out for this post right...
I gave up and this is how it turned out...
I decided to just go with it!

Joshua Maik

Tuesday August 30th at 3.33PM (15.33u) he was there:

Our beautiful son Joshua Maik

Animalpark

I know, I planned to do this yesterday, but things turned out differently. And so here I am, typing this, while hubby is still sleeping and I haven't even made coffee yet...

Wait.. I'll be right back.. ;-D

....

Can't start the day without coffee, can you?

So, I promised to blog about my visit too the zoo.

I while ago, my 5year-old niece Wyneke phoned me, to ask if I wanted to go to the zoo with her.

She had an invitation from the "Jonge Mantelzorgers" (Young Carers), to go to Dierenpark Wissel in Epe.

So last Sunday we met up with a bunch of other kids and parents/grandparents and we went to Epe by bus.

Dierenpark Wissel is a really small zoo, they don't have any of the big animals like elephants, giraffes and lions. The biggest animal they have is a dwarf-hippo.

There are lots of smaller animals, which can be seen up close and personal... LOL...

We walked around the park for about two hours, watched the puppettheatre about Stein Stokstaartje (Stein Meerkat) and a bunch of other animals. My niece ate icecream and after that we went to the playground.

Well, Wyneke went to the playground and I sat on the terrace with the other adults.

This terrace was just around the orner from where the playground is, so whenever Wyneke needed something, she'd come and find me...

I, we, had a lot of fun, but I was really happy we went home an hour early.

Here are some pictures of the animals:

 

The cutest animal of them all:





Love,

Caroline



Birthday-party

No not my birthdayparty, since my birthday is in Februari.

Last month my niece turned 9 and she asked me if I wanted to help with her birthdayparty.
All off my nieces are sort of creative and they alway pick something creative to do on their parties.

My sister-in-law found this great glass-mosaic workshop where the girls could make their own candleholder. But since there were 8 girls and she also had to take care of her youngest, it would be handy to have an extra set of hands to help the girls out...

So friday, after work I took a nap (being pregnant and working fulltime, is quite tiring ;P) and at 5.45PM I was at their house... The girls were still doing the hiding the gifts-thing, so I had a nice chat with my sis-in-law (Heidi).

After that it was time to drink "champagne" (non-alcoholic, of course) and eat french-fries and snacks (mini-frikandellen, kipnuggets en bitterballen).

When dinner was finally done (there was a LOT of chatting during dinner, and the subjectmatter was at times a bit mature...! ! !), the creativeness could start.

All of the girls got a small zip-locbag filled with broken glass and a bunch of nice square pieces of mosaic, a little glass candleholder (from IKEA) and a syringe filled with special glue.

It's really funny to see how the girls each had their different way of working. One was really confident and silent (needless to say she finished first), some were a bit unsure if they would have enough squares to make a full edge and others would chat so much we had to encourage them to work a bit faster...

The finished glasses have to dry 24hours before grouting, so my niece will bring the candleholders to school on monday, for the girls to take home.
There was so much glass and glue left, I asked Heidi if I could take it home. I have exactely the same glasses at home, and the could do with a bit of "pimping"... I had three, so I made my sis in law one to match hers (she made an example for the girls) and I can make my own set too...

I just have to buy some white grout, so I can finish them...

This is what the ungrouted glass looks like... As soon as I have grouted one, I'll show you...

Love,

Caroline