Play and Learn

The boys are so amazing.  What a gift it is to watch them grow individually in their personalities and talents.  Bateman has such an imagination and loves any type of musical or dress-up play.  Louis loves to play with cars or any little toy that will fit in his pocket.  It is also neat to see them learn how to play together and become the best of friends.

Before we received our shipment from the US, we were getting pretty crafty with toys.  Here's a cardboard guitar that Bateman rocked with!

Fortunately we brought a few cars with us so Louis could do his thing.

Here are those bikes that I mentioned.  The boys are having a blast riding them around the plein/courtyard in the center of the street behind our apartment.  When we first bought Louis', it was a little too high for him so we actually took the seat off so he could just walk it.  He has grown, though, so we put the seat back on and he is cruising.  He is as fast as Bateman is on his bike.

While we were in Paris, we saw a bride in front of Notre Dame taking artistic pictures with a really big veil.  The next week, Bateman wanted to take bridal pictures, too.

 And he wanted Louis to want to take pictures, too.  If you see Louis' face, you can tell he wasn't as into it.

Earlier in October, we took a morning bike cruise about 30 minutes to the Amsterdam Expo for the Pixar 25 year exhibit.  It was inspiring to see all the drawings and just an inside view of all the planning that goes into those pixar movies.  So creative.  There was also a documentary about the 25 years of Pixar that was so interesting.  It was nice that it was in English, too!

At the end of September, the boys started attending a Dutch preschool two days a week.  They're learning Dutch and making friends while Mama is getting things settled and scheduling appts, etc.  It's going really well and I'm amazed at how much Dutch Bateman has already picked up.  We've decided to send Bateman to Dutch school starting in March (they start the month they turn 4 here) so now's a great time for him to learn!  He's corrected some of my Dutch pronunciations already.  Smartie.

 I can't forget to mention Little Gym!  Within the first few weeks we were here, I was desperate for something on the schedule to help structure our week.  I decided to try out the Little Gym, and I can't say enough how much the boys look forward to it each week.  Daddy came with us one Sunday for a make-up session and he had fun too!