Daddy's Birthday Present

Daddy is always saying that he doesn't need presents, so instead of buying him something this year I made him a movie and wrote him some music using Garage Band and my piano. I'm pretty sure that Daddy really liked his present! :) 

Here's the movie (make sure you listen to the music. That's the most important part):

To view it in full screen, click here

Here's the program that I used to put the music together. As you can see, I didn't record all of it at once. It took awhile....

Gingerbread House *2*

*Continued from previous post*

8. Put the candy onto the house using the royal icing like glue, use licorice for the roofing tiles. 

9. Take lots of pictures

10. Let sit for a few days

11. Eat off all the candy and then feed the gingerbread to the ducks

Our gingerbread Chateau!

Gingerbread House

One of the many projects that we had in mind for the Christmas Holidays was the making of a Gingerbread house. When Daddy asked for Ashlynn and I to make templates for the different parts, I suggested we make a Gingerbread Chateau! Here's our step by step guide on making a Gingerbread house:

1. Make the gingerbread dough and using the templates cut out all of the different parts. If you fail, re-roll the dough and start again.

2. Put the gingerbread in the oven and let it bake.

3. Make some royal icing.

4. Once the gingerbread is dry, stick the bits together with the royal icing. Make sure the sides are dry before attempting the roof.

5. Get Daddy to help you with making windows and applying them to the window holes.

6. Attach the roof.

7. Buy a LOT of candy.

*To be continued...*

Dancing...

After Secret Santa we started dancing and singing along with the playlist that Nathalie had made on her iPod. Some people (like Adelina) liked slow dancing, while others liked moving around as fast as they could....and others just weren't bothered to dance at all *cough* Nora *cough* :)

Not sure if this counts as dancing, but it's funny anyway.... 

Adelina & Emilie

Fiona and Ellie

Adelina and Ziyoda

Secret Santa

The whole party began when some of us came up with the idea that we wanted to do Secret Santa, where we each had to get a present for someone else (we picked names from a bag), and they wouldn't know who was their 'Santa.' I had Zoe and I themed her present on 'Safari'

We put all of the presents in the middle of our sitting room and Ashlynn handed them out. Below are some photos of the different presents...

 

 

Christmas Party

From L-R: Mayu, Michelle, Ellie, Amelia, Ziyoda, Hannah and Ashlynn

From L-R....Top row: Adelina, Ellie, Lizzy, Michelle, Nathalie, Zoe
Middle Row: Hannah, Amelia, Ziyoda
Bottom row: Mayu, Emilie, Fiona

On the day before the last day of school, I had a Christmas party at my house. There were fourteen girls in our house that day, which is a pretty big party. There was lots of dancing and eating and more eating and a bit more eating. In other words, we ate and we danced and we did Secret Santa, but there will be another post about that. We decided that it would be a dressy party, so no jeans and t-shirts.

9JN Class Pool Party!

A week after Ashlynn's Party we hosted another, this time for my form group. Most of the class came, except for 3 of the boys. Daddy fired up the barbaque and everyone brought their own meat to be eaten. As well as that, everyone was requested to bring some chips or a fizzy drink to share. We had enough food, which was good. We had a great time shooting each other with water guns or trying to push each other into the pool. In the evening we sat around the campfire and roasted marshmallows.

The Girls making Pringle Duck Faces!

The slip-n-slide that Daddy made

Group photo!

Sitting round the fire place

P.S. Happy Birthday to me!

Ashlynn's Birthday Party

For Ashlynn's 11th Birthday party, she decided that she wanted a pool party. And that she wanted my friend Adelina to help her make her cake. So Adelina came home with me after school on Friday, spent the night and then on Saturday morning helped to make and decorate Ashlynn's cake. She made two. One with an orca on it and the other with green icing and the words - Happy Birthday Ashlynn. 

Ashlynn and Adelina posing with the cake.

I got to invite Lizzy to sleepover the next night as well as Adelina, so Lizzy and Adelina spent Saturday night.  We did go in the pool, but not for very long...(it was just a tad bit cold)

Jumping in!

Happy Birthday DTH3

If you're wondering, DTH3 stands for Dutch Treat Hash House Harriers. And this hash was our 5 year anniversary. So Ashlynn and I made cakes! Because if it's your birthday you always need cake as well as all the junk food you end up eating. We made chocolate chip cookie cakes! Yummy!

Here are the cakes. The top one was meant to be a windmill and the bottom one reads 'Happy 5th DTH3'

David and Andrew came around for the party and in this photo you can see Ashlynn blowing out the tea light candle that I put on one of the cakes. 

Easter Hash

The day before we left for Bonaire, we held an Easter Hash at our house. Ashlynn and I laid the trail in the morning, and I cycled during the hash and hid chocolate easter eggs for the kids to find. 

The hash ended at our house, where we ate chocolate, made a fire and dyed eggs for Easter. 

Dying eggs 

Most of the girls dyed eggs,

while the guys sat and played with the fire!

Daddy's Late Birthday

Because Daddy had been in France paragliding, we hadn't had a chance to wish him a proper Happy Birthday. So the day of the International Event, Ashlynn and I made a chocolate cake and decorated it very beautifully. 

We got home from the event and gave him his presents and his cake...

Singing Happy Birthday

About to open the cake...

The CAKE!
(If you can't figure out what it is, it's an ocean with a scuba diver at the top - and if you didn't realise that, you  may be wondering what B-day stands for. Well, I'm not going to tell you. Go look it up in a dictionary!)

Tye - Dye

L-R: Ellie, Aslynn, Me, Ellie, Lizzy, Daddy, Fiona, Adelina

Just one more activity - in the morning we made our own tye-dye shirts! It was loads of fun, but we forgot to put on the gloves so our hands turned out like......

Pizza and Perfume

We decided that we'd make our own pizzas. Well, Daddy made the pizzas and we decorated them with cheese and more cheese and other toppings. 

Yummy!

L-R : Ashlynn, Ellie, Adelina, Lizzy, Ellie, Me

Pizza!  Pizza!

Daddy had bought some perfume oils and we mixed them to make our very own scents. 

Happy 13 and half birthday

Because my birthday is in August and we're always in America, I never get a party with my friends from Holland.

So we organized a party, where some of my friends would come over for a sleepover and then we'd do some activities and on Sunday we'd go into town and go Scuba Diving!

Adelina made the cake in the photo above. 

We don't know if it's a frog looking at his crown or if it's a alligator looking at the crown of the frog he just ate.....?

Beauty School High

While Freya and Beatrice were here, we decided to do a play. So I had to write one. 

It was about popularity and bullies - Ashlynn was the bully!

Wearing invisible clothes 

In Paris...

If you want to read the script, I've uploaded it to Figment - 

http://figment.com/books/19267-Beauty-School-High

More fire

Just like last year, when we went over to their house, Freya and Beatrice came over to our house on the first of January. 

Writing with fire!

Magic Wands....

All our presents....

We got lots of presents.....

Books

Puzzle Ball

Pans and cooking things

Stuffie

Games

Candy

Chocolate

DVD's

oh and an iTouch!

New iTouch - Taking a picture of Daddy taking a picture of me

Diving computers