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Category Archives: Family and friends
Movie or picture
Sometimes I find myself with a dilemma. Do I grab a movie, or is it better to shoot some pictures. A difficult choice at times and in Leeds I made the wrong choice. I made lots of pictures, and only a short movie of a wonderful micro-concert by our own Alex.
Walking!
Alans first year
Alan is getting bigger and bigger. He is already one year and that called for a celebration with cake, presents and lots of attention for little Alan.
His first year passed fast. He is already almost walking and is crawling through the house at record speeds. He has learned to point at things he wants and he laughs when he acts as if he want to give you something and when you try to take it he will quickly take it away for your grasp.
The difference between our two kids are physically not so big. They look very similar but the difference in character could not be bigger. Alan is stubborn, does only what he wants to do, and convincing him to do something takes a lot of effort. With Alex this was a lot easier. Alex never put his finger in a wall-socket, but Alan went straight for the wall-socket at the moment he could crawl just to put his finger in.
Class photo
A class photo is a very nice way to remember your class for when you are a bit older. It is nice to see your classmates and even nice if you are still in contact with some of them. A picture makes it easy to remember, but it seems that pictures are not a very reliable way to remember anymore.
Alex just got his class photo of his class with 5 year-old. A nice picture but with something strange. Just look yourself: 
At first glance there is nothing wrong with the picture. A typical picture with a lot of kids that remarkably all look more or less at the camera. We only noticed Alex who seemed to have his eyes a bit closed, but hey, they are kids after all, so this is to be expected.
Then I noticed something else. The boy on the bottom right seems to be floating. A better look makes it clear somethings up here. The boy looks at the camera perfectly, has a clean black uniform, and his colors are more crisp. This boy has been added to the class photo using a photo made in a studio.
The teacher and the two most right boys were cut from the rest and moved a little to the right. The new kid was added and moved to the background, blurred a little, and then the teacher and two most right boys were moved a little in front of the new boy. Just like he was there. But in reality he wasn’t there. Should we want him in the picture even if he was part of the class? If we are going to edit the class photo anyway, why not just all studio pictures of all kids, smiling, clean and looking at the camera, and paste them all in a class composition.
Swing
While Alex is developing his musical talents his little brother Alan is developing very fast. Alan already crawls to any place in the house at a record speed. Walking is still a little bit to risky, but it won’t take long. Alan is getting up on his feet more and more. When we take Alan for a walk to the park it is not enough anymore to just look around. Alex demands to be taken out of the stroller and be placed in the swing.
First performance
Alex has been going to the Yamaha music school for almost two months now. He has a one hour class every Monday and he has to practice a couple of time through the week. Enough to get the basics. Here is a part of Alex’ first performance, together with his best friend Dario.
Running for two reasons
Today we have another run especially for kids. We hope Alex will enjoy himself and get a nice shiny medal, but this time there is also a good cause. We are running for a medal and for little kids with cancer. A double win.
Doing the dog?
English is without a doubt a very important language. Still, in the education we are giving Alex and Alan it is a little less important. For our sons Dutch is much more important. I want them to have at least a basic knowledge of Dutch so that they can manage themselves once in Holland. At school English is also a little less important. Alex’ school focuses more on German, with German classes every day, and English only twice a week.
We still feel that a little English at school, and all the English we can get on the TV should be enough to get a basic understanding. At least, as long as he is not taught incorrectly. At his school Alex got a drawing with the English title “What’s doing the dog?”, the words are in an incorrect order, which make it quite wrong. It should have been: “What’s the dog doing?”. Such a mistake in just once sentence is sure making us a bit worried.
Family update
Things are going very well with our kids. They support eachother very well, even though sometimes little Alan treats Alex to a bite.
On this picture we are visiting Jardin Canario, the local botanical garden. We went to see if there were any pitangas, but we found none. Still it was not all for nothing, we got to see a lot of Canarian lizards.