August 5 was my oldest Daughter her Birthday, since its vacationtime we didnt do a party for her, she rly never had a party because of that but we do always try to do something special on her birthday.  Ofcourse there are gifts too.She got a hairstyling set from phillips, which she has been wanting for 3 years allready, Ive gotten her the 20qball which rly is not so easy to get here in holland. We gotten our hair done on her birthday and later that day my mom came to visit us for her birthday. Merel loves  pizza so we ordered her a pizza. We picked up some indian food for ourselfs and  after wards ofcourse there was cake.

Today on august 6 My mom took us to the castlefest in Lisse. Thats some kind of fantasy/medievel event. So all three of us got dressed up. (Antonio stayed home looking after Anarosa) My mom bought Merel some kind of a gothic somewhat looking dress that she liked and although there where many lil  and bigger fairy statues, I didnt got myself to buy any of them because they where really  well priced. The store here in Amsterdam where we often go is cheaper and a lot more convienent so I dont have to drag an item thats very breakable all the time with me on an outdoor event. I have made ofcourse many pictures which you can find in my gallery, but since this was a something done for my daughter I will present you guys a picture of her here. The rest of the pictures u can find in the album CastleFest 2011 right here.

My daughter has been helping me arround the house since she was little. The tasks she did where ofcourse very simple to begin with. Starting with cleaning up her own things to helping me cook a meal. She’s 12 now and I just learn her how to bake an egg for herself. She knows how the oven works although I only let her prepare oven breads yet and shove a pizza in.  Its great because it keeps her from getting lazy and learns her vallues and become independent. Yes, your children too can help you arround the house with little tasks. You could even give them a little pocketmoney for a job well done. Ofcourse it shouldnt go down to what you call slavery, they are not your free housemaid. Children need to have the time and space to be kids at all ages. And ofcourse you can not let them organize ur china cabinet at age 3, unless youthink its time for replacement of your wares LMAO. But they could learn how to fold kitchencloths, water the plants and making the table aside of picking up there own toys and putting them where they belong. Its not only helping you with your chores its also educating them on there vallues and showing them how things are done. It gives them a responcibility and makes them feel proud of helping. I found a few sites that listed tasks that your child can do at a certain age. Ofcourse I could have made my own list but why not just give those people credit for the jobs they did instead of trying to compete with them :).

Women News tells us about a bunch of task that your children can help you with, varying from age 3 till 15.  I will give you a few examples.

• Three and a Half to Five:In terms of food preparation, no one needs their lettuce torn up perfectly, so let them give that a try while you work on the rest of dinner.
• Six to Eight : Get your kids stripping their own beds, helping to separate the lights from the darks, and even folding their own laundry. If they cant handle everything yet then start simple, think about socks and towels :).
• Nine to 12: This group can be changing light bulbs for you, bathing the family pets and washing the car. ( I don’t know about bathing the pets but they sure could help you clean the cages from the pets, and washing the car meant for me a few extra coins in my pocket when I was a kid)
• 13 to 15: This age group can be changing the bed sheets by themselves and hang and fold your laundry all by themselfs. (I have to say that my 12 year old has been changing her own sheets since she was 10 though.)

Ofcourse you should be the judge when it comes to knowing what your children are able to handle and what not. One kid is not the other, some like it better then others and some do a better job at things then others because of that. Give them tasks that is not only boring but try find things the kid can make a little game out of. You will need to help them and explain and show how to do something. Don;t only critic on them when they did something wrong but show them how to do it right and applaud them for a job well done.

The Reel News write about how you could also set up your house so your kids can do more things themselfs so you don’t have to do everything for them. When they are at an age that they are able to help you unload the dishes, make sure that the plastic wares are low enough for them to reach in the cabinets, let the things they need to make lunch  also be reachable for them. Thank them and reward them occasionally. Don’t go overboard cause then they learn to get paid for everything they do for you. Helping someone should not only be done for the reward.

And last but not least I like to tell you about a family with 8 children. In that family everyone helps out except for the two youngest children because they are simply  too young still.  But with about 12 loads of laundry on one single day you simply need the help you can get. Read there story at Worldchild.org

Today its time again to make carrotsoup for my freezer.  Yes I know I have posted about my carrotsoup before and even put up the recipe for y’all. I wont do that now, instead I will provide you with the link to the recipe on my blog so I wont have to retype or copy paste it all. Here you can find the recipe of my carrotsoup for those interested in it. Anyhow, thats my project of the day again. I like making things like that. It takes some time and effort but its not too expensive and difficult to make and the best of all is that it tastes awesome. The taste of carrotsoup always brings back memories from the past, good memories, memories about my mom making jelly and pancake pie, applepies, cakes cookies and more. I just hope that I can find the space in my freezer for it because its pretty full allready and  I have 6 liters of soup comming up! Not al that will go in the freezer because we will eat a part of it tonight for diner and maybe I will have a plate for lunch aswell when its ready. All righ now you guys have been updated again about my whereabouts, I shalll return to the kitchen to check on my soup. Take care !!

Lets start with the bad news first shall we, at least I think its bad news.  Its been a while since I have this laptop and my daughter is going to have to use my old pc for her school next year. Well the computer was kinda slow probably cause of everythign I have installed on it and its not the newest ofcourse, the harddrives are stuffed full with  useless things etc etc. So I need to make a back up and get it reformatted and completely reinstalled. Finally I found the courage to start it up and begin with my back up..  Where to begin.. heck I dunno too much trash on that old pc…so I just started with a folder on the desktop that reads.. Backup, thats where I started.. deleting some thigns from thedesktop that I really didnt needed to keep and adding things to that folder that I do want to keep. Then this lil window popped up sayign I had 5 updates on my computer and I decided to install them.. heck why not, then at least that annoying window that prolly would keep popping up every 5 miutes, would be gone.

So as soon as the updting was done it asked me to reboot.  I was going to click restart when I notice the mouse don’t move anymore. Yes you’re right, it crashed… So we pushed the reset button and there we go..Nice blue  screen pops up… Something about my videocard. Ah well o make a long story short, My husband is sitting at my desk now fixing the computer so I can make a backup…..

Few hours later:

Allright, I had to stop writing and actualy go make that backup. I have a external HD that i can just plug in any laptop or pc so I am putting all my backup files there. The most importan  are ofcourse the pictures from my family, the wedding pictures and babypictures, my photoshopworks and poems. I cant replace that. So After the files have been coppied I am going to make sure ALL my peronal files have been coppied and put in backup. Right now I am just going to sit and lean back waiting for the computer to be done with copying files. When I finally have everything checked Antonio can reformat it and reinstall windows on it  so my duaghter has her computer ready before the new school year starts and she can install some games she likes to play as well. Once that is done it should run smoothly again without all my trash on it.

Allright with two daughters u can understand that Hello Kitty’s appearance has become a normal aspect of this family. So from time to time I check the internet loking for cute Hello Kitty items for either one of my daughters Just so I have some gifts when I need them :). Everytime I run into the same items and sometimes a few new ones.. So many pages about Hello Kitty and just one particulair one I always have to visit.

Its written by a man who’s wife is a huge Hello Kitty fan. Its driving him crazy, so he made a website about Hello Kitty and all the terrible things people can come up with to spice up there life with the Hello Kitty figure. You will find not only pictures of items and tattoos but also pictures of people who cut scars onto themselfs in Hello Kitty shapes and other weird stuff Hello Kitty related. The site is called “Hello Kitty Hell” and I think its a very fitting name. But he drags more Hello Kitty fans then Anti-Hello Kitty fans I think LOL.  If you wanna have a look just click on the links in this text or simply go to: http://www.kittyhell.com/ . Enjoy your visit!

Parent Fail

Now since I am a mom and with that a parent I couldnt help myself from checking this out. You will find here the weirdest stuff parents  can do when there children are  arround or even let thee children do or help them doing it!  Would you aprove of this stuff? I for sure wouldnt! Sure some of these pics would bring up a giggle but at the same time I hardly can believe anyone would do that for real o.o;! To Check the site out go here: http://www.parentfail.com/ .