Daniel's first bike

My apologies for not keeping up with the blog this fall. We have been even busier than usual around here. Here are a few pictures of Daniel and his first bike which we got him this fall for his 2nd birthday. You might notice that it has no wheels- it is a balance bike which is meant to be sat on and propelled by pushing with the feet.



At first he was most interested in the bell. Daniel would not get on the bike the first time he encountered it.



A week or so later, we came home from somewhere and Daniel wanted to try riding his bike. He sat on it for a minute or less and then decided he wanted off. Perhaps in the spring... ;)

St. Nicolas Day

Merry St. Nicholas Day! The Dutch begin to celebrate Christmas with "Sinterclaus" festivities on Dec. 5th (which is the eve of St. Nicholas Day) so we've decide to adopt the tradition and make it our own. Last year we had small stockings for each other and one large gift for Daniel. We've decided that if he is going to get a big gift from us it will be on Dec. 5th so that he can have a few weeks to play with it before we head north for Christmas (and we don't have top pack it back and forth). This year Keith may have gone a little overboard. We decided that Daniel's love of playing with trains justified buying a train table and Keith was put in charge of finding one. He put it all together the day before in the basement and then moved it upstairs and set up the tracks, etc while Daniel was in bed. When Daniel woke up on Dec. 5th he was amazed to see a train table in the living room. I don't think he stopped playing with it all day except to eat and nap.


The previous "system":


Keith putting everything together after coming home form a symphony concert:



One happy boy: