Elliot Says

I want to compile some of the things Elliot is saying these days so I can remember them and because some of them are pretty funny :)


When Brent or myself sneezes
Elliot-"Bwess You"

A man on the sidewalk sneezed
Elliot " Bwess you Man"

Brent's phone vibrates on the table
Elliot "Bwess you Phone"

Can you tell he likes saying bless you?

Mindy " Elliot, time to stand up"
Elliot "opstaan mama" (opstaan is stand up in Dutch)

At Elliot's 18 month well child check
Elliot walks over to the Doctor with a toy that had something on it and says,"Ish, Rinse"

Whenever he has a poopy diaper
Elliot "peyew, diaper!"


Whenever he drops anything
" oh nee" (nee is no in Dutch)


We live right across from the recycling drop off. The truck comes twice a week and Elliot loves watching it
Elliot "Cycle truck mama"

Anytime he see garbage
"Bage, ick mama"



As you can see he keeps us pretty entertained! It is do much fun listening to him put words and phrases together. It's so awesome how many words he understands in both Dutch and English.

Favorites 3-6

I can't believe we are already a week into March! Since Brent and my birthday are in March it is always a fun month.  It has been a nice week with lots of play dates and park time. Here are a few snaps from the week.

1. On Monday Elliot came over to me and said, "snuggle mama" so I picked him up and within 5 seconds he was asleep on my shoulder. I miss my sweet little baby napping on me!

2. We had a couple of rainy days this week which meant puddling jumping. Elliot loves jumping in the "wawa" as he calls it. 

3. I watched my friend Daina's little girl all day on Thursday and it went much better than I anticipated. The played so well together the entire day. At one point when we were at the park and Bente needed me, Elliot came up and said," No, Elliot mama, Bente." So even though he loves Bente he still got a bit jealous when mama gave her attention ;) 

Neither of them wanted to put their pants back on after nap time.

4. Doesn't everyone ride an airplane in their diaper wearing a bow tie?

Blurry picture 

Have a good weekend!

Favorites 2-20

It's been awhile since I've done a weekly favorites post. So I thought I would do one today.

1. I love that Elliot has so many little friends here. He has one little friend Eloise that is always wanting to hold his hand. It is seriously so sweet.

Navigating the playground together

Not a problem that E can't reach the peddles, Eloise helps him out

2. Elliot had his first class at The Little Gym this week and he loved it so much! I am so glad we decided to sign up Two of his friends(Eloise and Evie) are in his class and I was a little afraid he would only want to be with the people he knows, but I don't even think he realized they were in his class. He loved jumping around and swinging from everything. He is definitely all boy :) 

3. With less than 5 month to go until we move back to the US, Brent and I have been in serious travel planning mode. We have some really fun trips in the works this spring/early summer that I am hoping all work out. 

4. We have nothing planned this weekend! Brent was traveling a few days this week and so all 3 of us are looking forward to some family time. 

5. I never shared this pic of Elliot from last month. We got a little bit of snow one night so he and I went to the park by 8:30 am before it all melted to get some pictures. The picture is a little out of focus but for some reason I still love it and wanted to share :) 

Have a great weekend! 

Mindy 

Budapest

Last weekend the three of us spent some time in Budapest, Hungary. We flew out Thursday(2/5) afternoon,(during Elliot's nap and thankfully he slept the whole flight!) and came back way too early Sunday am. We really enjoyed ourselves and thankfully there were a lot of pedestrian only streets so Elliot could get out walk and enjoy himself. Our hotel was in a great location, so Thursday night we went to dinner at place not from from us and walked around after. We of course had to have a traditional Hungarian Kürtőskalác for dessert. They are round and made from a sweet dough, wrapped around a cylinder, rolled in sugar and then cooked over coals. You can get different toppings and we went with the cinnamon one. Seriously amazing! Elliot of course loved it just as much as us.  

Our Kürtőskalác

Sharing with Papa

Thankfully, he shared with Mama

On Friday we had a big day of walking around and sightseeing. According to my fitbit we did over 22,000 steps! I had done some research on the city and we knew we wanted to spend a good amount of time in the Castle Hill area in Buda side of the city. We decided to take the cable car up since the hill was a bit steep for a stroller. To get to that area we walked across the Széchenyi Chain Bridge. When it was built it was the longest suspension bridge in Europe. It is one of the bridges connecting Buda and Pest. Unfortunately, it was pretty windy so we didn't spend as much time up there as we probably would have had it been nice out. We had lunch at a traditional Hungarian restaurant and walked around while Elliot napped in the stroller. We took a TON of pictures so here is a little sampling of them. 

Elliot barely peeking out 

Cable car up with hill

Mathias Church. The roof was an amazing mosaic pattern. So hard to capture in picture bit incredible to see in person. 

I loved all the different colors on the buildings

View of the Parliament building from Castle hill

First attempt of many family pictures

Looking out over the city

One of the best family pictures we got 

Not many pics of just the two of us anymore!(Elliot was napping in his stroller we didn't leave him out :) ) 

Our little explorer

I'll recap the rest of our trip later in the week!

Elliot Lately

Wow it has been awhile since I've written anything on here! After being in Minnesota for 3 weeks and adjusting to being back here, time just got away from me.

I thought I would share some of the things Elliot has been up to and things he's been saying. the kid seriously cracks us up.

Whenever he wants you to sit by him, he looks at us and says "by you" which comes out more like "by ya." It is impossible to not go and snuggle or sit by him.

Whenever he wants our attention he will grab our hand and say "come on mama/papa"

He loves pushing the button on the coffee maker in the morning to make my coffee. Now in the morning he walks over to the coffee maker and says "mama cupa?" As in cup of :)

He loves helping me cook. Here he is making sure the cheese sauce for the gnocchi tasted okay ;)

And baking cookies with Bente 

He also loves doing yoga with me, or as he says "oga" This is his best down dog. Which he calls dow dog

And here is a cute picture just because

I promise it won't be so long before I post again! 

Happy Monday!

London Part 2

On Saturday in London we woke up and knew we needed to get Elliot some running around time. We made our way over to the Princess Diana Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens. We let Elliot run around the park on our way to the playground. Once we got there he was in heaven! And we actually saw Hugh Grant there playing with his little boy! When we left there Eliot crashed in the stroller and we headed to Trafalgar Square and had some lunch before our afternoon plans.

A little park bench snack

This squirrel followed us around the whole park

My little buddy

He over course loved the tractor at the playground

and the swing

Catching the changing of the guards

During the changing of the guards

We met up with Sam and Dan again and they took us to a little local spot for afternoon high tea. Under Westminster Abbey there is a place called a Cellarium. If you tell the guards at the back of the church they let you in. Elliot did surprisingly well, as long as we kept the treats coming :) 

Proper English tea!

Pinkies up! 

We flew out the next morning and got right to relaxing after a busy trip! We had such a great time in London and look forward to going back again some day!

Thanksgiving 2014

This year for Thanksgiving the three of us decided to go to London. Brent and I had each been separately, and wanted to go together. Plus our friends Sam and Dan moved to London this past summer and it was a great excuse to visit them. I really love London and any excuse to go is a good one :)

We left on Thanksgiving and unfortunately all three of us woke up that morning not feeling great. We powered through and got to our hotel. They were having a Thanksgiving dinner there and we all ate a little bit and were in bed embarrassingly early. We knew we wanted to feel better for the rest of the trip and that night of sleep really helped all of us.

Trying to enjoy a little Thanksgiving

Crammed in the tube!

We started our day with a walk over to Buckingham Palace

Saying hello to the Queen 

Elliot's new thing when taking pictures

A perfect London shot

After walking around a lot of the London landmarks, we made our way over to Covent Garden district. It was all decorated for Christmas and they even had a Santa! We had lunch at the Jamie Oliver restaurant and enjoyed reading an English menu!

Someone is excited for his lunch

One of the best cookies ever!

Covent Garden Santa- Made from legos! 

Our walk back to the hotel through Hyde Park

That night we met Sam and Dan for dinner. Elliot and I were only there for a little bit of time as it was way past his bedtime. Overall, our first day in London was great!