Celebrating Easter In The Netherlands

I know this post is long overdue but I am posting this anyway. I just can't let the month pass without posting about my Easter experience...

Eating one of my egg shaped chocolates, Mom and Dad's Easter treat.
The pack came with a stuffed toy. An Easter Bunny.

We celebrated Easter in the Netherlands. Did you know that is improper to call it Holland because Holland is only a part of the Netherlands. My Mommy told me this very interesting piece of information when she was prepping me up for our trip. She must have read about this somewhere in the Internet.

The old Dutch village in Zaanse Schans

But anyway, as with most of our holidays, we just drove to the Netherlands. It took us about 8 hours, including stops and rests at parking areas. The drive would normally take only 6 hours but because I am still a baby and puked when we were nearing our destination, we just had to stop so I can change and so that my queashy tummy will calm down.

Sightseeing in Amsterdam. Strolling around the city center takes only a few hours.

We stayed in a hotel 20 minutes south of Amsterdam and stayed there for three days and two nights. Our first stop was Asmterdam. It is a very beautiful city with its canals, row houses, boat houses, and lots of bicycles. The next day, we visited the old Dutch village and the windmills in Zaanse Schans and then to Keukenhof, the largest Spring Garden in the world.

At the parking lot in Keukenhof.

I will be posting more of our holiday photos in the coming days... If I find the time. After all, a baby's got to play, watch and learn.... blogging is just on the sides. :D

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I Am A Filipino!

I may be born in Japan and spending my toddler years here in Germany but I am a true-blooded Pinoy! I can speak a few Visayan words: kaon, lola, lolo, baho. I eat Filipino food (although I don't like to eat rice anymore). I even love to wear my Filipiniana dress!

This is me.. playing dress up again! I just love this dress!

Please excuse the mess! Mommy hasn't cleaned up the mess that I made again!

Why do I even have one? My Tita Cha bought me one when she went to visit the Philippines so that I could also wear something Filipino for the Sinulog Festival which was held last February. My other friends have a dance number called Magtanim Ay Di Biro and even though I cannot dance with a choreography yet, they still let me on the stage.

My Mommy and Me after our presentations at the Sinulog Festival.

I had a blast at the festival although I had no idea what I was doing onstage! LOL!

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An Aspiring Guitarist

My Daddy and Me in my supermodel pose. Marunong na ano?

Did you know that my Daddy plays classical guitar? It is his renewed hobby. Renewed because he used to play the guitar before and didn't have enough time and inspiration to play it on a regular basis... until he discovered classical guitar. Thanks to the Internet and YouTube, he now has a lot of resources: techniques, exercises, even how to cut your fingernails right to get that correct tune. He is not really a PRO but I am his biggest fan! I just love it when he plays and practices and sometimes, I play along too. We have a spare guitar and it is the one I am using.

Strumming the strings...

Daddy is also planning to teach me how to play the guitar when I am big enough to hold a guitar and can understand about chords and frets and all those stuff. And I can't wait for my lessons! For now, I will just listen and watch him play those beautiful melodies... and yes, strum the guitar strings senseless!

I feel shy and self-conscious when somebody's watching...
And yes, that's my sheepish smile...

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I Am Snow White!

I love to play dress up! Mommy got some hand me down clothes from our friends a few weeks ago and when she took them out to wash, I found this little Snow White tutu costume which I insisted that Mommy put on me.

And while watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on DVD, I was dancing and singing too! It was fun to learn about Sneezy, Dopey, Doc, Grumpy, Sleepy, Happy, and Bashful, the bad Witch Queen and the Magic Mirror that never lies.

Please excuse my mess and focus more on my dancing.. hihi!

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Sleep... Are You Getting Enough?

As a growing kid, I need a specific number of hours of sleep so that I will grow healthy and my body will develop normally. For a two year old like me, I require about 10-13 hours of sleep in a day. I used to take naps in the afternoons and sleep for about two hours but this would mean me going to bed at around 11 or 12 in the evening, which is kind of very late and I would wake up at around 9 or 10 in the morning. I cannot sleep without my Mommy and Daddy by my side since I am still co-bedding with them. And if everyone in the house is still up, I am up too.

Sleeping little me while on a road trip. We were off to see the old windmills
of the Zaanse Schans in the Netherlands. Taken Spring 2010.

Sometimes, my sleeping routine is disturbed especially when we travel. I do sleep a lot when inside the car though, nestled comfortably in my car seat.

My sleeping pattern recently changed and I no longer take afternoon naps but sleep earlier at around 8:30 in the evening and wake up at 7:30 in the morning. This I think works both for me and my parents because they get to have a quiet evening together and talk about adult stuff or just be together while watching TV while I get to rest for a longer period of time, undisturbed.

What's my bedtime routine? After changing into my jammies and changing nappies, I would drink a bottle of warm milk while Mommy says our good night prayers. After that, if I am not yet fast asleep, we would talk... I mean, babble, nonsense until one of us dozes off.

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Timmy, Das Schäfchen

This is my latest cartoon craze:
Timmy, das Shäfchen. In English, it's called Timmy Time.

He's making my Mommy crazy too because I keep requesting her to play the intro video on YouTube. If I want to watch this show, which is almost like the entire day, I would simply say first: "Sheshen" (Schäfchen means little lamb). If she would pretend that I didn't hear her or she is busy working on her eLance projects, I would drag her hand and yell, "Timmy! Timmy!". You know me, I always get what I want. Hihi! It's shown here in Germany on Super RTL but it airs too early for me. Showing time is at 6:30 - 7:00 AM, with 3 episodes per day.

Mommy has found a solution for this though. She has actually managed to program our media receiver to automatically record this series so that I am expecting to be able to watch Timmy when I wake up. Hihi!

If you have no idea what I am talking about, I have embedded the intro parts of the show, both in English and German. Luckily, it's on HD! Come, sing along with me!






Isn't Timmy das Schäfchen just adorable? The characters help toddlers like me to make animal sounds and associate it with an animal too because the characters "speak" with their own language... So Timmy says "baa, baa, baa" each time he wants to say something, Teacher Owl says, "hoot, hoot, hoot", etc. Cute eh!? No wonder I am loving this show!

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