Snow. Still.

The snow is still there. And yes, it still is very beautiful. And yes it still makes this wonderful sound when you walk over it. But on three little girls it is very hard to stay inside as much as we do now. Today I decided (kind of forgotten about our previous experience I guess) to go to the playground again. Again of course being the only ones. It even was worse than the last time because this time they wanted to play in the sand pit so badly that they actually got really mad that the snow was so cold. Well, two of them of really mad, mainly at me in the end.They really loved the new playground ‘waterspielplatz’ we discovered really nearby our house, with a lovely sandpit, lots of community toys and also: rabbits. A bit scary as well, but very interesting nevertheless. We’ll be back in spring!

Window

Where we have been doubting back and forth if we wanted to live on a busy road as we do, the girls just seem to love it. If it is really, really quiet there are two options. Either they are doing something very, very naughty, or they are standing here on their little chairs watching the people go by.

Presents

One thing I love about all these people around us having children is that I get to buy presents for the newborns as well as for all the little kids’ birthdays. Luckily we live in a neighborhood full of children and therefore full of children shops. Unfortunately I have to confine myself to the light and relatively flat stuff to be able to mail it and keep the mailing costs within limits – I am kind of a sponsor of the Deutsche Post since living here. Took me a couple of months to find out that postcards do not have ‘standard’ (whatever that may be) standards you pay five times as much and let I happen to  be somebody who doesn’t send standard sized postcards…

Anyhow, we did find a couple of good presents over the last few days that are pretty sendable at great shops in the area. At Me and My Mummy  they mainly sell the greatest kids clothes also of a few of my favorite brands (Petit bateau: perfect if you have very slim kids like I do, Kik kid: for the tomboys, Smafolk: colorful brand from Denmark using very soft fabrics) This time we find an elephant shaped washcloth for our niece in India who turns three and a couple of robin socks for the brand new sister of baby Vida - Also bought a fantastic bouncing ball with a crowned frog and lots of golden glitters in it, but that was a present for ourselves.

At Schatzinsel they really do have a lot of treasures for kids. It is completely packed with mainly little toys. Here we found lovely forest cupcake holders, happy birthday candles (both of which we end up using ourselves) and lovely little fox plasters, which we send to Alec because he is such a little scallywag. - Also bought a little bucket and scoop for ourselves, you can never have enough of those in a city as Berlin.

At Rasselfisch they mainly are about selling strollers, but they also have a corner with all kinds of toys and other kids’ stuff. Here we find a soft woolen bonnet for newborn baby Vida, Three paper chicks who we still are searching a house for and the loveliest daisy bracelets. Bought two of those last ones this time but return later on to buy four more, because we do think every three year old girls should have one. Rasselfisch turns out to be a stayer and we have returned here more often. When our eldest turned three for example to buy one of their doll carriers. Or when baby Louis was born, to buy him and his sister two of their duck wash clothes.

Problem in the end always is that I can’t seem to choose in all these nice shops and that I end up buying nothing, having to return later on.

Snow!

It finally started snowing in Berlin! White streets, white playground, snow crackling under our feet together with the little black stones they use in Berlin against slippery sidewalks. We even tried the playground today, which wasn’t a big success because they keep refusing to wear their gloves which of course makes their little fingers freeze. After 15 minutes returned home with three crying babies with little red noses and red cheeks, quickly happy again with some fresh cranberry breads in our warm home 

Apple Pancakes

Making them lunch every day makes me explore new things or just go back to the really old ones: the things your mum made you when you were little. One of my favorite things my mum made for dinner when my dad was on a business trip were pancakes – I believe my dad didn’t think pancakes were proper dinner so we only ate them when he wasn’t there. Every one of us had their favorite; she always made a couple of those for everybody. Mine were apple pancakes.

Today for lunch I decided to bake the girls a stack of apple pancakes. It’s actually surprisingly easy (again I’m not really a sweet baker) to make the batter by adding 1 egg and 2 dl milk and a bit of salt per 100 grams of flower. It’s even more surprising that I often hear Dutchies who live abroad complain about how they can’t find a good pancake ‘mix’ where you only have to add milk to it. I don’t know what is in this mix but it only substitute flower and eggs.

Anyway, making the really thin apple pancakes I like so much myself was a huge hit with the little ones. My plan was to make a huge stack of them and then put it in the middle of the table like my mum used to, but I guess they were so attracted by the smell they were begging for some the whole time I was baking. In the end I didn’t even get to put two pancakes on top of each other because they already ate one before the next was ready.

Cookie Baking

Baking sweet stuff has never really been my thing. I think I made 1 cake myself over the last ten years and last year made cookies twice, but that was with a jar from Dapeppa so I guess it doesn’t really count. (Were very good though, especially the walnut and cranberry ones

In my new life as a stay-at-home-mum (still not used to the name) I decided that one of the thing I at least should master is baking cookies. We’ve started on plain old “sand cookies” (kind of like shortbreads) and will keep on going till we got them really perfect before we move on to more complicated baking goods. At this point our mixture contains 2 parts sugar, 3 parts cold butter and 4 parts flower (no rice flower, that was a huge mistake). Mine also contains raisins, hers just contains huge chunks of chocolate.

http://www.dapeppa.nl/

Das Blaues Band – Breakfast edition

Last day my sister is here, she takes the train in the afternoon so the plan is to have a big lunch (with definitely their beet root salad and some cheese cake for desert) at Barcomi’s deli, but unfortunately it has both rained and frozen tonight so the streets are beyond slippery. On our way along Alte Schonhauserallee we see about six people falling down really, really hard within five minutes or so. This makes us decide to enter the first place we walk by that serves lunch which happens to be Das Blaues Band.

In the back of the place are some nice little benches with low tables which are perfect for our entourage with the three small ones who are really hard to tame these days. We settle down, tie one of them in a high chair and order three of their breakfast asap (with coffees of course). I have to say that this was a very successful operation. We ordered their pancakes with bananas, one Englisch breakfast and one Scandinavian breakfast. We actually manage to keep the kids happy for more than 45 minutes with all the pancakes, sausages, smoked salmon and bread rolls. With a very patient waiter who we were very happy with.

Chagall

Last evening my baby sister is here and first evening my man is home to stay with the little ones. First evening for me to go out at night for drinks so I actually do not have the faintest idea where to go and because it’s so cold outside we don’t want to walk around too long so we decide to go just around the corner in the Kollwitzstrasse to Chagall and then later on have a whiskey at scotch and sofa’s. Chagall turns out to be a great choice, very friendly bartender, good atmosphere and the beers are very tasty so we don’t move on but stay here the whole evening. Great catching up without my lovely little ones.

Bonanza

Today should have been all about visiting several flea markets in Berlin. We choose four of them to visit (Arkonaplatz, Mauerpark, Ostbahnhof and ending up at Boxhagenerplatz) by bike so we would travel fast and would actually be able to visit them all, but today was cold. And I mean really, really cold. The master plan was to not get cold to the bone but warm up every hour at least to try and stay warm.

So after Arkonaplatz (where I bought 4 lovely breakfast plates) we went to Bonanza to warm up. Nice little coffee place with just a few tables and high chairs. It’s all about coffee and they really make great coffees. Or at least cappuccino’s, my sister ordered a lungo but I guess it then is better to take a regular filter coffee which they also serve. The green tea and pistachio cookies they sell on the side are also very, very good. I also bought a bag of coffee beans for we are still looking for good roasted beans for our machine at home and unfortunately weren’t able to find good ones yet. Hope they are good, but doubt we will find as good beans as by Brandmeesters in Amsterdam.

After Bonanza we went to the Mauerparkmarket, where indeed are a lot of tourists but nonetheless I found it to be a pleasant market with some nice second hand stalls but we also bought an illustration by two Japanese artists and some handmade wool-lined children gloves. After half an hour at the Mauerpark we really did give up our flea market journey but not before we have some fantastic homemade ravioli in sage and butter (one of my favorite dishes and here they really know how to make it) with Heisse Zitrone (hot lemonade) at Teigwaren, in the Oderbergerstrasse again, to warm ourselves for the ten minute bike ride back.

Favorite Dish no. 1 – Spaghetti with Oven tomatoes

This really is one of my favorite dishes and I believe I really do make this at least once a week. This has everything to do with the fact that it takes very little time in the kitchen but is very, very tasty. It actually is a recipe my friend Marie made for me about ten years ago and I’ve been making it ever since.  It’s all about the tomatoes, since this is a product Germans are better in producing than the Dutch I especially make it a lot since we’re here.

I’m not a recipe writer and don’t know anything about the proportions, but I’ll try my best to explain. Just take a lot of tomatoes, about twice as much as you would normally use and the smaller ones are really better (about one size up from cherry tomatoes are the best). Cut them up and put them in a baking dish with a lot of olive oil, garlic from the press, balsamic vinegar and fresh thyme. Now the key is that you actually can make any time during the day because it can be in the oven for three hours, for just an hour or even a half. The shorter it stays in the oven the higher you should put the temperature, I always try and put it in the oven at least two hours before I want to eat and then put the temperature around 120C. (when late and I just have half an hour in the oven I put it up to 200C) Just stir it every now and then and adjust the temperature to make it go faster or slow it down. I always taste the juice half an hour before dinner to sometimes add a little honey to sweeten thing up because a lot in this dish depends on the quality of tomatoes. The nice thing in this dish is that it actually dries the tomatoes a bit which makes them sweeter and concentrates the taste of the tomatoes very much. After taking it out of the oven and seasoning with salt and pepper I add a few hand fresh basil leaves.

Serving is done with pasta, my favorite is spaghetti, and cheeses. I always use parmesan and when I have it in the fridge or am well prepared with fresh soft goat cheese on top. Please do try, it really is a very, very good dish. Especially with small children, in my family everybody loves it when I make it.

Kiezkind

Today is a wonderful, almost warm day and we want to go and explore some secondhand and children shops in the neighborhood.  After visiting a few shops in Marienburgerstrasse it’s time to have lunch and mainly let the children have their time  out of the strollers. We end up at Kiezkind at Helmholzplatz which turns out to be an excellent choice!

The really cool thing about this place is that they have a big indoor sandbox! The girls cannot believe their little eyes. Also very cool is that they have excellent coffee, great sandwiches and everything to also make the little ones happy from melted cheese sandwiches to mango lassies children’s size.

Only downside was when we decided after an hour that it was time to move on with our shopping trip and the girls had a completely opposite opinion. Luring them outside by sowing them the dozens of small bikes and cars outside only worked for a moment because we didn’t have anything to lure them away from the bikes. Anyway, we had a great time drinking our coffees while the girls had a really great time in the sandbox. We will most definitely come back here more often. Great place, lovely people. Thank you Kiezkind for this wonderful concept, it’s been a while since going out for lunch was this relaxed.

Aquarium

My sister came to visit for a couple of days. We’re so happy she’s here, we love to have her around and the kids adore her. First day: pouring rain. Of course we don’t want to stay inside now she’s here, but a shopping expedition with three small kids is not an option. Then what? The aquarium! 

The Berlin Zoo has two parts with separate entrances to can visit, the regular Zoo and the aquarium part. Last time the oldest went there with my parents, but they didn’t have the chance to go to the aquarium as well. Favorite animal? A crocodile! She never wants her face to be painted any other way. Where are the crocodiles? Of course in the aquarium!

The crocodiles were by far the most favorite, but all the fish, and certainly the beautiful jelly fish, where good for a lot of fun too. Above the ground floor two floors with frogs, snakes and a lot of insects (huge spiders still give me the creeps) were nice as well, but the ground floor definitely was the main attraction.

Sjakie

Sjakie the Weimaraner loves it in Berlin. The Parks. The dog friendly people that give him treats. The fact that our house here is twice as big as the one in Amsterdam with only half the stuff in it. He only misses Grandpa and Grandma taking him for long walks in ‘t Twiske or the beach.

Bye bye Tree

And the little Christmas mushroom on top

Sand

Another thing I love about Berlin? All the playgrounds are built upon big sandpits, which makes it so much more fun especially for the little ones. All I need to bring are three little shovels and buckets and it’s guaranteed for hours of playing. 

The big playground on Kollwitzplatz is favorite with the kids. What is perfect for our little kids is that they have two separate playgrounds, one for the bigger kids and one for the really small ones, so the small kids will not be run over and the big ones don’t have to watch out that much. On week days during the day it’s quit quiet here and the mums and dads seem to come all at once around the clock of three thirty.  

Little Feet

One group of four leaving, few hours later another group of four arrived. This time two of them are toddlers. She was so happy and standing in front of the window for an hour waiting for their arrival.

Great moment? When I read them a bedtime story and suddenly noticed their little feet on the other side of “Can’t you sleep, Little Bear?”

Happy 2014!