My feeling is that this will be a rambly sort of entry with thoughts going everywhere .... that's how my mind has been going this past month. I haven't really felt the urge to blog much which is fine, something that I'm ok with. In so many ways it''s been a wonderful month and very different from the ones I've been experiencing. We've been four months now in the Netherlands!

Marcel has been home for just over five weeks now and it just messes with any resemblance of a routine that I might have. I do love having him around more as it's full of fun, stress and the kids get to see him more. We have been sharing the responsibilities of teaching the kids. Marcel has been spending time with Jackson building a castle and a mountain scene out of papermache.

That has freed me up to spend time with the older three children taking the opportunity to see a couple more mesuems and have more focused times with table-time. Michael and Marcel have started running in the mornings down to the Amstel River to have some dad/son time and to get fitter. We are noticing so many changes happening in Michael, he is maturing, and articulating more of what might be bothering him and his mood swings have at times taken us by surprise! I've been talking ALOT more with him and I've been so glad to see Marcel taking the initiative of talking issues out with M too. We are definitely getting closer to that time of teenagehood where good friends have told us how much more their children needed to talk and discuss. anyway, it's quite a journey!

Having Marcel home also means that we don't have an income coming in, so that means we have needed to make some tough decisions about our future. But hey, isn't that life sometimes! This last five weeks has reminded us just how much we rely on the Lord and how fragile our situation is and as tempting as it is to just go for it, a more softly, softly approach needs to be our aim for a little while to come. Well, Marcel starts a year-long contract on Monday so that is an answer to our prayers and the time we need to establish ourselves.

We've been plodding along with the lessons and I so enjoy seeing the learning that is happening with them and the connections they children are making with the world around them, in language, in geography, mathematical patterns, in relationships and resolving issues, in reading their Bibles and other books for enjoyment, and making important decisions. There are frustrations, of course, especially with working out the needs of four children with all their differences.

We've had a stomach flu so that hasn't been pretty at times. Especially when Jackson chooses the prime spot at the top of the 'carpet' stairs to be sick ... of all the place he could have been sick he goes for the only carpetted area in the house! Don't ya just love kids when they are sick!! Anyway enough of that and I think we are over the worst now!

We have met up with other homeschoolers for several activities recently and that's been brilliant getting to know others in the country. I admire the parents here so much with their challenges of finding good quality dutch resources, they are really starting from scratch in so many ways. In Australia we have the option of buying workbooks off the shelves in Big W-type-shops or bookshops or newagencies if we want to go that way in our families. There is very little of that type of workbook being sold to the public in this country it all goes through the schools. We have found some great little books that are designed to teach the dutch children english and have used these to our advantage as a way of learning dutch.

Recently our family celebrated Thanksgiving for the first time with three other families. We really loved doing this celebration as it was great way of focusing on thankfulness. We had the dinner on the Friday night rather than on Thursday as it's not a public holiday here like it is in America. I found it lots of fun to be shopping for the ingredients and being creative with substitues and trying to find cheaper options! I love to go grocery shopping where there is so much to discover. Now this is a new experience for me as I've pretty much always disliked grocery shopping before but each time I go now I discover something new somewhere on those shelves it's almost become equivalent to browsing the bookshops! Now, aint that something!!

In amongst the buying, cooking and organising to get all the thanksgiving food to our friends place, as well as looking after two sick children, Marcel finds out that he could still manage to vote in the Australia elections by traveling to Den Haag (a 3-4 hour round trip) .... well that didn't go down well. Not with a creamy potato with gravey, cheese ball, and winter salad to make for about 20 people, not to mention transporting all the food over to our friends house and sick kids. He just has a way of making all these last minute things seem so possible but I've been through this sort of senario one to many times and am hopefully learning that it's ok not to go with last minute changes to plans. :-)

Michelle xxx