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The last weekend in November, we had a 'christmas' barbecue with friends from Piet's kinder class. The kids had water fun in the front garden and a video afterwards. A week later, the mums took Nicole out for high tea as a last outing before her fourth child is due - her eldest is the same age as Piet. Dad had a team lunch on the occasion of finishing his rotation into the liquidity risk team.
On 1st December, Juultje made her first six 'steps', witnessed by Piet and Emma. These are still rather modest steps, a few centimeters each at most, but it is a beginning. Piet and Emma excitedly told dad all about it when he arrived at the dance concert at school. Emma's class did the lego song, while Piet had a key role in a cool hip-hop song with his class.
Sinterklaas
We started putting our
shoes out, with lettuce for Sinterklaas' horse (normally this is a carrot). We celebrated the main Sinterklaas event on the
morning of 6th December.
Juultje got a few
presents as well. The main present for Piet and Emma was a
skateboard.
Emma's class presented the assembly. They performed a dance and Emma had to do an announcement. After school, we had an ice cream. The three youngest grades at school went for their annual beach carnival. While the kids wear their swim costumes, they are not allowed to swim or even touch the water. It is about games and sand play.
All children in Emma's and Piet's classes received merit awards for a personal achievement. They were all very proud. In the last full week of the school year, Emma received another award with her best friend Katy, while Piet got his for a second year in a row. It was a beautiful finish to the year.
School holidays
On Juliana's birthday, we drove to
lake Jindabyne for a weekend
camping with the extended family on the occassion of opa and oma turning 70 that month. Piet proudly lost his
sixth tooth - he can still remember where he was and what he was doing when he lost each tooth. We had
fish and chips for
dinner. Juliana was assisted by her siblings in unwrapping
her presents, while opa could still manage
on his own. We had another glass of
wine and grannybunts gave Piet and Emma some
electric bugs. We played a
game with stones, which mum and oma remembered.
The next day we had breakfast with coffee and filled the day with more canoeing with mum in Kel and Glenn's canoe and sailing in the family's old dingy and swimming and so on. Piet was chatty at dinner and we had Juliana's birthday cake for toetje.
