9 May 2011: Christian turns 40!

A milestone age for a lovely chocolately paragon of a man. But he didn't just turn into his lovely self overnight, right?! So, in honour of this momentous occasion, I'd like to call upon all who know/knew Christian - family, friends, customers?! to share a story about him and thus join us in the celebrations for his 40years. 

To get the ball rolling, answer the survey questions below and see how much you know about our darling Head of Hoffs in Brussels:) 

Then POST! your story and we'll share it with him on his big day (no, he has no idea that we are doing this;)

Hoff All-In: September 2009

Oufti! It almost seems as if doubling up on the kiddy numbers has also meant that time goes by doubly quick as well. Here we are at the beginning of September looking back to what has been a pretty fabulous couple of months since last report:

• weather-wise: what a TREAT! it has been here in Belgium, lots of blue sky, warm weather and balmy BBQ evenings
• family-wise: we're all getting along terribly well! Louie and Jules are two very happy babies who just love eating, sleeping, and playing - ahhhh! could not have wished for better
• holiday-wise: Nikita and Jojo had a great time at scout camp end of July. And the whole family went off to Denmark for a very relaxing, quiet break with family and friends
• work-wise: I think that I may have 'struck gold' in finding the work-life balance that really! rocks for us

The highlight of our past two months has to be the twins baptism in Denmark on 9 August 2009. Church service was at 12pm with reception luncheon at Fregatten Jylland cafe/restaurant. The ceremony itself was brilliant. FIVE! babies were christened altogether: our two, Nikoline (Chris' cousin, Pernille's baby) Rasmus (baby of Helena, sister to Pernille) and little Oliver (no family relation at all, but certainly in the right place at the right time:)

Needless to say but it was a little mayhem there for a while as the priest went through the motions for each of the babies (and their godparents and parents - phew!)

A GARGANTUAN thank you to Kirsten (Chris' mum) and Uncle Knud for hosting the reception at Fregatten Jylland!! And a very big thank you to ALLLL the friends and family for the many! gifts that the boys received on their baptism day.

Water is a major feature of any Danish holiday and so it was that this year that Nikita and Jojo took their first sailing lessons! Jojo is clearly a sailor's boy. He cannot get enough and cannot stop talking about it! Nikita on the otherhand is well, we think she is interested. She is certainly able. It's just a little disconcerting when, if left to her own devices, she will tend to plait the guide ropes together rather than use them to manage her sails......hmmm.

Disappointingly? (so I am told) enough, neither Nikita nor Jojo managed to capsize their little optimist sailboats. Oh well, there is always next year;) See more summer photos on the link to the right of this page.

So we are now back in Brussels! Nikita has just had a small surgery to re-seal the ear-drums in both ears. This means that she should actually get to 100% hearing capability within the next couple of weeks. School started back last week (1st September): Jojo is in his 3rd and final year of pre-school; and Nikita very proudly started primary school (parents very proud too:) The sun is still with us although we sense very much the beginning of autumn (bl**dy leaves EVERYWHERE in garden). Chris and I are back at work thanking our lucky stars for Aabida, the twins new nanny who incredibly makes it so that when I come home from work, all I have to do is play with my children.

Next up on the Hoff-Nielsen family agenda:

• my 40th birthday celebrations (crikey!) with loud friends in September (while weather still nice) and quiet family in October
• Nikita turns 7 years old at end of October
• Chris's Uncle Henning turns 60 also in October and we'll try to get up to his celebrations in Denmark

And before u know it, it will be Christmas!! Lots love to all in meantime:)

Hoffs All-In: July 2009

Summer time has arrived! .................and now it's gone again. Oh well that's life in Belgium hey LOL!!! But life goes on right? Indeed! And lots has happened since our last blog:

• I started back at work on 15 June and thanks to our super Nanny, Maeva, the twins daily routine has remained cool and zen (which also translates to me remaining cool and zen because I don't need to run about like a mad thing trying to beat the traffic morning and night to drop off or pick up the little ones from the creche)
  

• Nikita and Joakim have joined the local Scouts club and are looking forward to Scout camp at end of July. They're also on summer vacation too now so they're coming into the office with me each day where they're looked after nicely along with hundreds of other Belgacom littlies while all the mums and dads are working on 'important' stuff:)
  

• Christian is busy busy as ever travelling between Belgium and the UK in his never-ending bid to pick up cars and parts for go-mini.be. Actually, his company has been quite popular with the media types these last couple of months! Look out for a vampire-themed short film coming to cinemas soon.............there are a couple of his minis featuring big time and if u read flemish, check out last weekend's edition of De Standaard (the one with the breaking news about Michael Jackson) because there's a 6-page insert featuring - you guessed it, minis out of go-mini!
  

• And of course Louie and Jules are growing well. They're now 5 months and we're introducing solid feeds to their daily routine. Oh and did I mention that they're now sleeping right thru nights? BLISS!

In a couple of weeks we'll be heading off for our annual pilgrimmage to Ebeltoft, Denmark. Big on the agenda is the twins baptism on 9 August. It's going to be a great occasion as two of Christian's cousins will also baptise their newborn babies at that time too. Lovely culmination of a very productive year ah-hem:)

In the meantime tho' it's heads down and getting on with the daily business of managing work demands with those of very full home life. Thankfully, all are happy happy and in very good health. Touche du bois que ca continue!!!!!!

Hoffs All-In April-May 2009: Moving right along...

Last time I wrote, I believe I mentioned that 2 weeks had ripped by with barely much notice. Well, seems that have well truly taken me 'eye off the ball' and allowed 2 months! to run away without much of an ado. Thank you to those dears from whom I received phone calls and emails not so much to check if we were OK, but rather to tell me politely to pull finger and get writing! Big kisses to u "Mmmmwah!"

Well I can report that we're all still doing really great. Family dynamic is lovely, tho' it helps that mummy's home, keeping house, and getting the dinner onto table each night. Fingers crossed that we can keep up the happy times when mummy goes back to work mid-June!

SO! Nikita's theatre piece at end of March went off spectacularly well and we r very proud that she overcame her speech difficulties and delivered each word, and each line SO! clearly and SO! brilliantly. Her speech therapist, who sat next to me, was thoroughly impressed also. The show overall was a big hit in fact (DVD copy available on request). So good in fact that they should be nominated for a kiddies-theatre Oscar:) Oh and yes, the bunny rabbit costume turned out pretty darned decently I'm pleased to report....tho' I don't expect to be taking home the award necessarily for best costume;)

And Joakim turned 5!!! Far-moar, Kirsten, came down for the week of his birthday and scored the biggest points with her Obi-Wan-Kenobi light saber and costume gift. Far-far, Bjarne did pretty awesomely as well with his and Corinne's remote-controlled boat. And Nanny, Susan, got the biggest thumbs up for a clothes gift that I have EVER seen. I've never seen anyone so happy with trousers and t-shirt that he'd want to SLEEP in them as well as wear to school the next day! Crikey, anyone would think I dress my children in rags the way he carried on LOL!!

Louie and Jules are cracking along nicely too. They almost sleep thru the nights now. They're down at 8pm and wake around 5.30am which means I'm more tired than before since my body is still functioning on a 'catnap'-sleep regime. Jules was the first to get to this stage - he has actually managed to sleep thru until 7am.

As well as far-moar's visit, the other highlight of April was our first family holiday to sth France to visit far-far, Corinne and family. We spent 10 relaxing days together around the pool, visiting places, catching up with family and friends. It was truly lovely and so many MANY thanks to Bjarne for arranging everything and of course to he and Corinne for taking such care of us while there. (I only cooked once while there AND! they babysat ALL!!!! our kids while Chris and I went out for a wonderful dinner looking out over the mediterranean.) It really doesn't get much better:)

And now we are back in Brussels, we are expecting a busy month this May:

• the twins get their first vaccinations (yowch! thank goodness the experience won't stay in their memory banks too long)
• Nikita goes to the dentist for her very first visit (her teeth are literally FALLING out of her mouth and we just want to check the new stuff coming thru is growing normally. She won't have too many mates if she continues looking like A vampire yeah;)
• Christian celebrates his 38th year this Schuman Day (9 May)
• Joakim gets to party down in a belated birthday celebration with some of his friends (23 May) Any volunteers for entertaining 8 little ones for the afternoon?
• We all go off for a company-sponsored family day at Walibi attraction park, yipee (24 May)

So, lots of photo opportunities coming up and what with so many celebratory times, not too many excuses for long faces (well not at time of writing, that is. I still have yet to see my own dentist bill for the series of appointments scheduled for me this month) ay ay ay!

Hoffs All-In: Monday, 3/3/2009: A New (blog) Beginning...

After four weeks at home altogether, it becomes timely to wind down our blog focus on the twins' progress and start to check out what's happening with the rest of the family. So we are beginning a new 'chapter' in the blog called "Hoffs All-In" - not to be confused with a 7-day "all-in" break to the Dominican Republic (though that would be nice too;)

I think the most important element in our little family's dynamic these last couple of weeks has been the fact that both Chris and I have had enough energy and time for Nikita and Joakim, in spite of the obvious 24/7 demands from Jules and Louie.

Nikita's hearing problems continue but we see major improvements in her self-confidence and speech capabilities these last couple of months - it's fantastic! The best part is she is so motivated herself to improve. She's teaching herself how to write (she'll take books and copy out words), she goes thru her speech therapy exercises even though Chris and I have already gone thru them with her and her vocabulary is increasing no end! We couldn't be prouder of her:)

Jojo is a real little boy. He's discovering all the super heros and his current fav is anything Star Wars (a subject very close to mine and Christian's own hearts;) So, we are planning a Star Wars movie sit-in this weekend. Despite all his bravado though, he's still a very sensitive child and we've had to spend some time de-dramatising situations which see him otherwise go into a corner and cry to himself. We had to pay particular attention to him when the twins arrived. It took him a couple of weeks to accept the twins really. But now he's cool being big brother. On that note, we've managed to find little ways for Nikita and Joakim to get involved with Jules and Louie. Although I'm breastfeeding (4-hrly intervals now - woo hoo!!), we'll do the 5pm feed via a bottle for example. That way Nikita and Jojo can also help with feeding. Actually it's pretty cool because we never have any fights over who gets to hold the baby since there are two of them after all:) And at this stage they can't tell the difference between the twins, so there's no favouritism....yet;)

Chris and I, in contrast, have not had much time together since the twins arrival. Yes, yes, I know some of you will laugh and say that given the number of children we now have, that some time apart is perhaps a good thing LOL! Well all I can say is that we're doing fine and looking forward to when we will be able to sit down simply to watch a movie together. Ahh life with plenty kids eh;) LOL!!

So, Hoff family projects for the next two weeks:

• Nikita has a school play end of this month so she's busy learning lines. She's playing the role of Mama Rabbit. Suits her well. She gets to tell all her baby rabbits not to go into the farmer's garden and eat his vegetables....of course they DO! so she gets to 'whoop their asses' ;) LOL


• Joakim's 5th birthday coming up (7 April), so some seriously planning/organising required there. He'll be wanting to plan the whole thing down to last detail (ahhh, my son!)


• Louie and Jules have a 'sleep test' to look forward to end of this month (just to make sure sleep patterns are all well and good). They've also got first paedetrician appointment next week, which will undoubtedly mean a jab in the butt for something - poor blighters:/


• Chris is off to the UK to pick up a Lotus Elise for a customer - and some bacon from the farmer's market for me! It's the only condition under which I let him go;)


• Chilli is in the dog box (literally!) for getting into one of our rubbish bags the other day

• As for me?.....oh same old, same old: cook, clean, feed, wipe bottoms, make milk, make a rabbit costume, and take 5mins to sit down and drink that re-re-RE-heated cup of tea.

Life is very full:) And we couldn't be happier.............we could be RICHER! but not necessarily happier;)