Merry Christmas

Hey Everyone,

We just wanted to take a moment to wish you all a Merry Christmas. We hope that your day will be filled with the spirit of Christ. Make the most of this day and enjoy!

(Here is a photo of our little family in front of our Christmas tree. We couldn't get the little guy to look at the camera, but he sure has a pretty cute profile!)

Here is one of our favorite Christmas music videos we thought we would share with you. http://www.lds.org/topic/christmas/christmas_video_1.html

For more Christmas music, videos and stories you can check out this website http://www.lds.org/topic/christmas/

We love and miss you all. Keep warm and enjoy the season!

Love,
Jason, Laura and Atticus

Picture Update

Hi Everyone!

Between the two of us we have been snapping so many photos that we thought it was about time to share them. We dug through hundreds of photos and picked out these ones. Of course, they are mostly of Little Man, but those are the best kind anyhow. Underneath each photo is a short description.  We've also put together a mini-montage of some Atticus' latest feats.  Check it out on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1NYv_Vuj3w . ENJOY!

Love and miss you all.
-The Clog Crew



Little Man loves sticking out his tongue, particularly when he is concentrating really hard.

An array of early morning pictures of Atticus in his Christmas Sleeper. Check out those cheeks! He sure has grown.

Solid foods...can you believe it!?!?! Atticus has shown an interest in our food for a while so we gave him a carrot stick one day and he picked it up and tried it out. Judging by the expression on his face, what do you think he thought of it?

After reconsidering his first reaction, Atticus decided that he loves carrots! We have tried out apples and oatmeal as well, but he prefers those tasty carrots.

Mommy about to put Atticus to bed. He loves to cuddle with Mom and Dad before he goes to bed. What a sweet little boy.

Jason stringing the lights on the Christmas tree. He did an awesome job.

This is what happens when you encounter HHR (Holland's Horizontal Rain). Here is part one of someone's umbrella.

Here is part two of the umbrella, about 15 feet away.

Jason stalked Sinterklaas in the grocery store to snap this photo.

Catching a late afternoon sunset.

Jason snapped a photo of this narrow Choral Alley for Pieterskerk. Pieterskerk is the church where the pilgrims met before they headed to America. Now, they have a special Thanksgiving service there every year.

Jason took Atticus to Sinterklaas' house in Leiden while Laura wrote her last exam of the year.

Time for Christmas baking...sort of. We made Salt Dough Christmas ornaments together for Family Home Evening. Here is Laura showing off our handy work.

For our first shot, we think they turned out pretty good! We decorated them this past weekend with some friends and it was a hoot.

And how could we forget to share this awesome picture. Atticus managed to back himself up and get stuck under the couch. When we came with the camera he hid himself under his hood. Atticus is NEARLY mobile and moves every direction possible...except forward. We'll keep you updated on his progress!

Sinterklaas and the Spanish Invasion

How are everyone's preparations for Christmas going? Things here are just starting to go into motion. The Netherlands are well underway in all of the Sinterklaas events and chocolate letters are everywhere! We checked out some of the shops last weekend and enjoyed seeing all the Christmas displays that have started going up. This weekend we decided to avoid the Saturday shopping frenzy and headed to the Natural History Museum instead. Atticus loved looking at all the neat displays and we tired out before he did! We weren't able to quite see everything so we will be back again soon.

We have a great video of Atticus laughing up a storm. We are not too sure what he thought was so funny, but it sure wasn't mommy. He is a riot and gets us laughing all the time with all the faces and noises that he makes. Here is the link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hvb2Erwvec

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. There was good food, good friends and so much to be thankful for! Our tree has accumulated a lot of ribbons already and we are excited to add some decorations to it next week.

Laura has one more exam to go and Jason is working hard to finish up his projects before Christmas. Atticus is enjoying all those cute baby things; he is turning pages in his books, "singing" along to music, playing piano keys with daddy and dancing up a storm with mommy. When he is tired of all that he winds down by making faces in the mirror. What a kid. He is an incredible blessing in our family.

Well, hope you enjoyed our quick update. Here are a few pictures of our recent happenings. ENJOY!

Love and miss you all.

The Clog Crew

Atticus enjoying a good book

He must have got to the funny part.

Atticus and daddy checking out some bones at the museum.

Atticus, mommy and a rhino at the museum.

One of many red ribbons on our tree.

Jason all decked out in his rain poncho for his morning ride to work.

Mow the grass or shovel snow....???

We have been blessed with great weather for November and everything continues to be very green (this makes up for the often grey sky!). The locals are still needing to mow the grass weekly. We've decided that we prefer the smell of fresh cut grass in November over shoveling icy sidewalks.

Things here are as busy as ever. We are working away to build up our food storage, exploring the neighborhood, and spending plenty of time with the Little Guy. For Halloween we enjoyed a lunch with some other Canadian couples who have some young babies. Atticus was dressed up as a Little Ranch Hand and looked very handsome (naturally). This weekend we will be cooking a belated Canadian Thanksgiving and have invited over another Canadian couple who missed the festivities to enjoy the feast.

Atticus is rolling over, chatting, blowing bubbles, laughing, grabbing his toes, sticking his bum in the air, drooling and teething. Poor kid, we hope some of those teeth pop through soon! He loves music and books and gets very excited about both. Here's a link to a few more recent video clips of him that we've spliced together: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Mr85AHosB8.

Work is keeping Jason on his toes and he is now the ward pianist and is looking forward to being able to practice his piano/organ playing again. Laura is down to the final crunch for her courses before she gets a break for the holidays. We're getting very excited for Christmas and the tree has already been set up. The decorations haven't gone on yet as we've made an agreement that we will withhold Christmas decorations until the 4th Monday before Christmas. In the meantime we will each be tying a ribbon on the tree daily. On each ribbon we will write something that we are thankful for. It is a tradition that we hope to continue each year and it will commence during Canadian Thanksgiving. By the time Christmas arrives we will have a tree full of beautiful ribbons, each representing a blessing in our life, and in the end all of those blessings are thanks to the Savior, whose birth we celebrate. We love the Christmas season!

Well, it's time for us to enjoy a peaceful nights rest *fingers crossed*. We've loaded some photos for you to take a peek at. Enjoy!

We love and miss you all.

Love,
Laura, Jason and Atticus

Our little ranch hand

Leiden City Hall

Jason showing a bicycle traffic circle. You should see them during rush hour!

Laura enjoying a fresh Stroopwafel

Little Man being cute

Sporting the fantastic hat from Great Grandma Hochstein

Already looking more grown up!

LOVE those cheeks!

And let the drool flow.

Yummmmmmm...FINGERS!

We Belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

As many of you know, we are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Some of you may be unfamiliar with the church, the teachings and what it means to be members. While we understand that everyone may not agree with what we believe, we feel that increased mutual respect and strong bonds are built when individuals have an accurate knowledge and understanding of each others religious beliefs. So, we thought we would start by taking a few moments this week to share some facts about the Church as an organization.

As always, we are happy to answer any questions that you may have or to clarify items. We hope you enjoy learning a little bit more about the Church that we greatly value our membership in.

• •“Mormon” is a nickname for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, derived from our use of the Book of Mormon, another book of scripture similar to the Bible. Members are often referred to as “Mormons,” “Latter-day Saints,” or “LDS.” The term “Saint” means “member”, or "follower of Christ".
  

• • The Church was restored in 1830 in upstate New York with Joseph Smith as its first prophet and president. Today it is headquartered in Salt Lake City, with President Thomas S. Monson as the present prophet.

• • There are now over 13.5 million members in 176 countries and territories. About 6 million of these are in the United States, making us the fourth largest Christian denomination in America. As one of the fastest growing Christian faiths in the world, we complete a new chapel every working day. Members pay a tithe, which is 10 percent of their income, making this and other programs possible.

• •Local congregations are led by volunteer, unpaid members. Both men and women serve in assigned leadership positions.

• •Mormons are well represented in politics and government. (In the United States, for example, there are 16 members in Congress, from both political parties.) Members also serve in high and trusted positions throughout the world in business, medicine, law, education, media, sports, and entertainment.

• • Mormons place particularly strong emphasis on family as the basic unit of the Church and of society. We have a deep commitment to marriage (defined as a union between one man and one woman). Polygamy, a limited practice in the early pioneer days of the Church, was discontinued in 1890, some 117 years ago.

• • Families and individuals, whether members of our faith or not, can attend Sunday services in our chapels. Here we worship together, instructing one another from the scriptures.

• • The Church has auxiliary programs for women, youth, and children as a support to the family. These programs provide such things as religious instruction, opportunities for Christian service, sports, drama, music, and Scouting.

• • And there is also much focus on extended family, genealogy, and personal family history, providing young and old with a stronger sense of roots, identity, and belonging. The highest and most sacred ordinances of our faith relate to our families, both living and dead, and some of these ordinances take place in our temples.

We hope reading this has given you more insight about the Church. We hope to write a similar blog entry soon with a greater focus on specific beliefs and values of the Church. In the mean time, if you are interested, here are some links to a couple official Church websites.

www.lds.org - The official main website for the Church. In the top right hand corner there is an option to choose from various languages.

www.mormon.org - A great resource that introduces people to the basic doctrines of the Church.



Have a great week everyone!

Love,
Jason, Laura and Atticus

Bicycles, Windmills and Wardrobes

This week in "The Adventures of Laura, Jason and Atticus" we'll hear the harrowing tale of how the troublesome trio has adapted to life in Holland! Ok, ok, so it may not be THAT exciting, but we finally feel settled into our new place in Holland. The move out from Germany went quite well. Surprisingly, there was barely any traffic to deal with. It probably helped that it was early Sunday morning when we left. Something to know about being in The Netherlands, though: traffic here is ridiculous. Could be because it is the most densely populated country in Europe, but in any case, rush hour here is more like rush hours. Fortunately, we are using a popular transportation system in Holland that avoids rush hour - Bicycles! No need to worry about rush hour. That said, there is quite a bit of bike traffic too. Ever been in a line up of 30 cyclists at the local traffic light? Craziness.

Anyhow, being here has been incredible so far. Holland is a beautiful country - very green and lush, despite the wind and incredibly unpredictable weather. The people we have met so far have been very kind and helpful. It certainly helps that the vast majority of the Dutch speak English to some extent making communication easier.

The neighborhood where we live is a great place on top of it all. Our apartment backs out onto nothing but pasture land filled with sheep, cows, and canals. There are even a couple of windmills nearby - one of which still operates, and the other is over 200 years old! Otherwise, we live within walking distance to all the nearby stores we'll ever likely need to visit. Downtown is only a 45 minute walking trek away, and church is a half an hour jaunt. The Hague Temple is a little further than walking distance but it is only a 20 minute drive. It's awesome being so close to everything.

Jason's work is only 9 km away so he still bikes every morning. There's usually a good wind coming off the North sea most of the day so it means it's a lot quicker for him to bike home than to get to work. Otherwise, his new project is going well, and his colleagues all seem to be terrific people.

Laura stays busy helping the little man grow, making sure Jason doesn't get himself into too much trouble, and working on her degree. Three exams next month! Christmas will be a nice chance to relax.

And, of course, Atticus is busy being cute. He's smiling, laughing, and mastering how to roll over. He's adjusted well to the new place, which we're very grateful for. There are, of course, some new pictures of our little man below. Almost four months and already getting so big!

Our apartment is, well, wonderful! We love it here, if for nothing else but the view (see pictures of the view at the end of this post). Below is a link to a YouTube video we took giving a short tour of the place. It's a bit bigger than our last place, laid out much better, and our land lady has been very helpful. We were very blessed to find the place when we did. Hope you enjoy the look around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbFF6RShjEw

Otherwise, we hope you're all healthy, happy, and doing well. We now have our own permanent Internet connection, which is very nice to have. We've also got Dutch cell phones that we can take incoming calls on from anywhere for free, so if you feel like giving us a ring, by all means! We'll send out an email with our contact details.

Have a terrific weekend, and we hope to hear from soon!

Tot ziens,

Laura, Jason and Atticus

Big yawn!

Enjoying a good laugh.

Sleeping on his walk to central Leiden with Mom and Dad

Wide-eyed and drooling = CUTE!

He's an airplane!

Our "backyard"

A beautiful sunset outside our windows after a rainy day.

The start of a new day. Morning fog over the ground and the moon high in the sky.

The sun beginning to set behind the neighborhood windmill.

Moving Day

Is moving day synonymous with problems? Probably, but everything works out in the end so it's okay. Here's the recap:

Very early in the morning, Jason hopped on the train to go to The Netherlands and pick up our moving van. When we booked our moving van, we let the rental company know that there would be three passengers; a mother, a father and a baby in car seat. The rental company offered us a moving van that had three seats across the front, BUT since the van did not have the option to turn off the airbag in the passenger seat off, the rental company said that we could put the baby seat in the middle. This was a great plan, however, on the way home Jason noticed a slight problem regarding the seat that we were planning on putting Atticus in - it only had a 2-point seat belt. This created a problem because we need a 3-point seat belt to safely (and legally) secure the car seat into the vehicle.

Many hours and many phone calls later we learned that there were no other moving vehicle options. After looking at all the options, we realized that we would need to obtain another rental vehicle in order to get all three of us to the Netherlands safely. Fortunately, we were able to secure a small car for a decent price at the last minute. Heavenly Father was definitely watching over us.

The rest of the day went fairly smoothly. We were able to fit everything into the moving van and Atticus seemed to think it was pretty funny watching us pretend to play tetris as we rearranged the boxes so they would all fit.

It's hard to believe that we have been here a year. We have been blessed to meet some wonderful people, learn a new language and see some amazing sights. Some of the neighbors stopped by to say goodbye, and we recieved many phonecalls wishing us well. We have enjoyed our time here in Germany and are so grateful to have had the opportunity to live here.

Now, it's on to The Netherlands. A new adventure. We are very excited to see what we can learn and to meet new people. We are not sure when we will have internet access again so we thought we would post a few pictures before we head off in the morning. Of course, the pictures are mostly of Atticus, but we know those are the best kind! And, for those of you who have yet to see it, here is a video of Atticus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oOAhUQEiLM . Enjoy!

Love you and miss you all!

-The Clog Crew

Picked fresh from the pumpkin patch. 3 Months old here! Can you believe it!?!? They grow up so fast.

Atticus checking out his reflection.

Sleeping in the wrap.

PEROGIES!!!!!!! The Castrucci's wanted to learn to make perogies, so Jason put them to work. It was a very fun evening. Here are the ladies hard at work.

We are absolutely in love with this face.

All snuggly warm trying on his snowsuit.