To celebrate his sixth birthday, BB had a Lego party. I had as much fun planning this one as I did the Rainbow party in March. Having the party at a playschool was helpful. Lots of ideas from Pintrest. Some of my own. Tons of fun for everyone.
The invitation
The party table
The food spread
The cake with Lego candles
The cupcakes with Lego candy
Lego juice
Lego art
Lego man art
Pin the head on the Lego man
Lego gift bags
Party favors
Happy party goers
Once again, as at the Rainbow party, I forgot to get a picture of all of the gift bags together, because that looks much more impressive, but the yellow lego bag is one example of the four basic colors we used. You can actually build with the lego candy!
I now have a six-year-old on my hands! It was a happy and very busy day. BB had his sports school this evening, which meant rush, rush, rush home from school, eat and go. Both children are doing "hobbies" now. LS is in gymnastics. They are both loving their own groups.
Preschool, aka the year before school, for BB is going extremely well. He loves doing schooly things. LS is enjoying the freedom from being the little sister at dagis.
And me, well, I had my first day of classes today! I felt a little old when everybody whipped out their laptops, but I got mine out, too, and carried on. How refreshing to be exposed to new thoughts and fresh ideas!
And suddenly, summer is upon us. We took our first ever family bike ride today. It felt so wonderful to be doing this together, and I'm really proud of the children for learning so quickly and being so careful.
With the warmer weather, both children have really gotten into bugs and worms. LS picks them up and makes them her pets. BB is very interested in ants. He studies their trails and he and his dagis friends had a routine of collecting them in a bucket and watching them fight. We're looking forward to seeing lightning bugs in SC!
We spent this evening under the big top at the dagis circus--themed spring party. What a show! I won't include pictures from the actual show, since I feel funny about posting pictures of other people's children without them knowing, but I can just say that tonight Pappa and I were very proud of our little magician doing his magic trick and our funny clown doing her juggling act!
I always enjoy thinking of teacher gifts at Christmas and at the end of the year. This year I started with the idea of a summer basket including a beach towel, travel sized sunscreen or lotion, flip flops, etc, but I ended up finnishizing it and getting fleece blankets, a magazine with cross-word puzzles, some flower seeds, a facial pack, and a blueberry flavored soda from the fruit stand at Prisma. Success! The teachers loved them. Gummy helped me go around town yesterday to get the goodies. And the color coordinating came into play once we spotted the baskets.
What nice weather we've had for a spring party. I remember last year, we were all shivering!
First of all, I want to announce that Pappa got a tenured position that he really wanted! Congratulations to him! I am so thankful and proud!
Secondly, I'm also proud of myself for making these silhouettes which we gave to the grandmothers for mothers day. I saw on, you guessed it, Pinterest how to make them using photoshop. I never managed to do it the way they were instructing -- using the magic wand or lasso or some sort, but I did get them done in the end. Success!
For five years now we have attended a family camp on Mother's Day weekend that is arranged by the Swedish-speaking congregation. What a blessing it has been! This year we almost didn't get in -- we missed the deadline by one day and by the time we called, they were full. Well, they ended up starting a new feature at the camp -- a youth group. It was time, because since it's more or less the same families year after year, the oldest of the children who started coming five or six years ago when there started being this camp are actually young teenagers now. Since the youth group was moved to a separate building, that freed up space for a couple more families, including ours!
The camp is held at a seaside retreat center with fairly new facilities. It's called a camp, but there's no camping about it other than the grilling that traditionally takes place on the second night. And the perfect thing for Mother's Day is that all of the food is provided, so that means no cooking or washing up all weekend! There are helpers available to babysit at practically any time, so parents can get away for a sauna, a walk, a nap or the interesting parents' discussion groups. And there is always a special sauna for mothers where we get pampered with foot soakings and chocolates. And on Sunday, there's a roast dinner and the traditional cream and strawberry Mother's Day cake before going home.
Since we have been going for five years now, we have formed a special relationship with many of the regular families. Most of us don't know each other outside the camp, but because we discuss such intimate and personal things when we are together, it is always so wonderful to pick up where we left off with them.
I could still go on. It's a wonderful thing. This was the first year that our children spent more time playing with friends away from us than with us, but that's okay. They had the time of their lives.
It has also been encouraging for me on the language front, because it's so noticeable from year to year how my Swedish has improved. I remember having Pappa translating in my ear the whole time the first year we were there. This year, I understood almost everything, and even spoke Swedish at least half of the time (although everyone knows I speak English and so they automatically speak English with me).
Today, when I picked the children up from dagis, their teacher told me that LS and the other girl in her group who had attended this year were singing camp songs all day long. :)
I just can't say enough how this weekend is time and again a refreshment for our family. It is Christ-centered and Love-based. It's wonderful.
You may remember that BB has a tradition of throwing things into the sea at this particular beach. Here is this year's video (notice the trilingualism!):
Mama
PS. Here are the videos for 2011, 2009 and 2008 for you to compare and contrast. -Pappa
