Ties´s eerste verjaardag / Ties´s first birthday

Mijn neefje Ties had vorige maand zijn eerste verjaardag.

Ties is mijn eerste neefje, en het zoontje van mijn broer Mattijs.

Ik was een beetje druk met mijn werk,

en het duurde een paar weken voor ik wat voor zijn verjaardag gemaakt had.

Dit zijn vier speciale momenten uit zijn eerste jaar.

Zoals jullie kunnen zien heb ik Jip en Janneke figuurtjes getekent.

Het was zo leuk, dat ik de monsters op zijn shirt ook dezelfde gezichtjes gegeven heb.

My nephew Ties had his first birthday last month.

Ties is my first nephew, and the son of my brother Mattijs.

My work was keeping me very busy,

so I did not get to make and send something until a few weeks after.

These are four special moment of his first year.

I used the simple drawing style of Jip and Janneke,

from the famous Dutch children´s stories.

I liked the style so much,

I had to apply it to the faces of the monsters on his shirt.

When Ties was just a few weeks old he had to get operated.
He had a tiny hole in his groin, the Dutch word for groin is lies.
They lived quite near the university hospital,
there they know how to operate on very small babies.
The operation went well, and Ties is doing fine.

I came visiting from Norway in the summer.
We had a good time together, he is my softest nephew.
I always have a drawing pad and some pens with me,
and I helped him make his first drawing.

I just like the shirt a lot, I will get clothes like this when I become a father.
It´s a shirt from Maurice Sendak´s Where the wild things are.
I had the book lying around, so I gave it to them.

Here is Ties surrounded by moving-boxes and paint and a helmet.
This spring they moved to a bigger apartment,
three generations of Middag were involved in the moving project.

Momenteel heb ik twee weekjes zomervakantievakantie, en ik blijf in Noorwegen.
Ik heb de mensen en mezelf beloofd om niet stiekem te werken.
Dus heb ik lekker de tijd om te zitten tekenen en bijbel te lezen en te bidden.


Right now I´ve got two weeks of summer-holiday, I´m actually not going anywhere, I´m just staying here. I not very good at planning my time off.
I promised everyone and myself that I would not secretly do some work in my free time.
That will create some time for me to be making drawings...