On Wednesday Sasha’s colleagues threw her a baby shower at work.

We received cute presents including several American classic children books, such as “Big Red Barn” and “Goodnight Moon”.

This week we made good progress with the preparations for our new arrival.

Wednesday evening I installed the car seat. It was easy but it’s nice to know that it’s done.

I stayed home Monday afternoon to receive the delivery of the crib, but it was damaged in shipment so I refused delivery. Hopefully they’ll redeliver next week.

We ordered all the other things we need this week, and every day we are receiving new packages. With the exception of clothes and blankets we’ve ordered almost everything online. It’s very helpful to read the reviews on Amazon, especially for things we have never bought before such as these baby items.

In the fall of 2004 Sasha, Steven and I went to the Toneelschuur in Haarlem and saw the movie Girl with a Pearl Earring.

A few days later, while I was waiting for my visa to be processed, we saw the painting in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague. It’s a gorgeous little painting, and through the movie it became one of Vermeer’s best-known works.

Yesterday the news came out that Girl with the Pearl Earring will be shown in three museums in the United States next year, while the Mauritshuis is being renovated. Very exciting news.

A few days ago my colleagues threw me a surprise baby shower.

We have a bi-weekly team meeting at 3.00 pm. I was on another call until 3 pm so I hurried from my desk to the conference room. When I entered it was all dark and then someone threw the light switch on and there were a lot of pink cupcakes on the table. A very nice surprise!

We ate the cupcakes and played a game of “guess the baby food that’s in this diaper”. I picked “honey” and “guacamole” on the first diapers until I realized that this was actual baby food. I guessed 0 out of the 7 diapers correctly.

We received very nice gifts and great cards with wishes. Thank you all!

Over the last few days I’ve done quite some cooking, in preparation of the first weeks when the baby arrives. I’m not exactly sure what’s in store for us, but everybody says we’ll be very busy and tired so I figured it’s useful to have some frozen healthy dinners ready.

I made enough macaroni sauce for seven meals last week, and recently I cooked a huge batch of chili. I’m very happy with my two electric burners that allow me to cook on the balcony — it’s great for “smelly” foods like garlic and onions.

This week I’ll also freeze babi pangang and perhaps some other dishes.

Suggestions?

Snow in Arlington, Virginia.It was snowing tonight and we woke up to a white world. It’s the first snow this season, and it will disappear soon.

Last year when we visited D.C. for Sasha’s interviews there was a very thick layer of snow in February, so there’s still a possibility, but it has been a very mild winter so far.

I took three pictures and stitched them together with Hugin, an excellent tool.

Yesterday we saw a beautiful documentary, “Babies”, about the lives of four babies in four different cultures. A baby in Namibia, Tokyo, Mongolia and San Francisco went through the same major milestones in life — but in very different environments.

The cinematography and music were outstanding. It’s a French movie but it has virtually no talking. The film captured beautiful landscapes and most of all great human moments.

Joy, a colleague, recommended this movie. Highly recommended. The trailer of the movie can be found here.

Over the Christmas weekend Irena threw a surprise baby shower for Sasha. She had arranged everything and invited our friends to Secaucus on Saturday.

A baby shower is an American tradition where a friend or relative of the future mom organizes a surprise party (usually just with girls) for her to celebrate the baby with drinks, food and a “shower” of baby presents.

Early in the morning while Sasha was still upstairs we decorated the house and prepared the drinks and snacks for the party. The decorations were adorable: pink baby balloons, garlands of tiny diapers, tiny giraffes and elephants. The cake was also carefully chosen for the occasion. We got a lot of baby presents and the girls had a fun time at the party which was spiced up by champagne (apple cider for Sasha though). Thank you, Irena, this was a great surprise! Special thanks to Ilana who chose some of the decorations and took great pictures.

While the girls were enjoying the party I went out for drinks and lunch with Jonathan and Ed.