dailylife

Yesterday before we left for Ingrid's party we saw Leo making his first steps and caught it on video. Just like Adrian the day before, he was laughing while he was walking.

Here is a short video.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. We took the boys swimming in the morning and in the afternoon went for a very long walk, followed by dinner at Lyon Hall. We spoke with Nora over Skype.

I was testing Leo this morning. "Kun jij wel ... zeggen?". Here were his answers.

auto - buuh
mama - mama
papa - papa
slapen - нана (he repeated in Bulgarian)
poes - ma
boom - boo
Nora -- nena
Adrian - tata

Adrian has approximately the same vocabulary though his pronunciation is a little better. He "parrots" us more.

Adrian likes to say "nee". We'll ask him if he wants something, he'll say "nee" (or не, it's hard to tell the difference).

Here is a short recording of him saying "nee, nee" when I ask him if he wants get out of bath.

And then there is this from our walk tonight:

Adrian: "die"
Adrian: "die"
Leo: "Buuh" (auto)
Guus: "Wat zie je daar?"
Adrian: "daar"
Guus: "Waar is de poes?"
Adrian: "Nee"
Leo: "Ma"
Adrian: "Ma"

A dog barks.

Guus: Wat hoorde jij? Was dat een waf waf?
Adrian: Waf waf!

Guus: Nou dan gaan we weer verder.
Adrian: nee, nee!
Guus: zeg maar dag poes.
Adrian: Mama.

Nora arrived safe and well in Bulgaria, and I spoke with her over Skype for a few moments. She's happy.

It's great to have more time with the boys now. Tonight we went for a walk and without a destination in mind, we ended up at the hondjespark because they like watching the dogs so much.

We managed to take a picture of Nora, Leo and Adrian.

A few moments after this picture Leo made a summersault from the sofa to the carpet.

Nora loves reading "Pol". Here she is, totally absorbed, with a big pile of books within reach.

She often tells me about funny pictures she's seen in the books.

Leo, Adrian and Nora are having a lot of fun with their new water table.

The boys like to drink the water too. Which we don't allow so that's a lot of fun for them also.

There was a big thunderstorm over Arlington last night, and around 10.30 pm Adrian woke up crying. He was clearly scared so I took him downstairs, where he cuddled with Sasha for a long time. He was happy to be with us.

The boys figured out how to swtich on the radio, much to their delight. We let them roam around in the living room more frequently now, and they love it.

Leo in particular likes to play with the radio, but I started telling him "nee". He tried twice this morning but after a gentle "nee" he does leave it alone.

The other night when they were playing with it they managed to switch the radio to FM radio, which we haven't tuned so a loud white noise blasted through our living room, scared us all, haha.