Sinterklaas 2014

We love, Love, LOVE celebrating Sinterklaas around here.  Here's how it looked for us this year:

As always, we went to the Intocht at Rotterdam Harbor with friends.

It was a happy occasion.

Kaydree & Holly ready to catch some pepernoten.

The "zwarte pieten" or black petes were met with added criticism this year, due to some pressure from the international community to make this Dutch tradition a little more politically correct.  A movement was made to paint the piets with rainbow faces - this random kid is the only one I saw with a rainbow face.  Frankly, he looks like he's supporting quite a different cause to me.

Here's a tradtional piet handing out treats to our group.

This is the only shot I got of the kids at the pwc party before my camera died.  I'm sure some extra pictures are stuck on Ryan's cell phone somewhere.  We had a great time, as usual.

This was Kaydree's second year to make a "surprise" (pronounced the Dutch way surPREEZ).  She drew the name of a friend who loved the color pink, so she designed this pink crayon to hide gifts in.  It turned out great!

The actual evening of Sinterklaas landed when I was still in the hospital after Bennett was born.  It was part of the reason I wanted to checkout early and head on home - we love this holiday and hate to miss it.  It is definitely part of our lives now.  My kids look forward to it every year.  So here we are on the evening of Sinterklaas, me with a sleeping baby in my lap and hospital bracelet on.  It was a little overwhelming, but still fun.

 Till next year, Sint!