While I was preparing food in the kitchen Friday afternoon, Isabel brought out some of her dress-up clothes . Within the span of 30 minutes, she had changed her outfit (and regular clothes) multiple times. Below are a few photos to document the changes. She put her outfits together without any help or suggestions from me--each outfit is purely self-inspired! Although, she told me this week that she wants to be a princess when she grows up, you can see from the second photo that she hasn't let that desire restrict her from playing at other vocations as well. :-)
You can't see it from this photo, but the back of her hat says "Princess in Training"--a colleague of Olli gave it to him to give to Isabel and she wears it proudly
Isabel the builder
Isabel the flapper girl
Isabel the bunny rabbit--a mask that she colored at Lukas' parent breakfast at preschool that morning
A few months ago when most of Lukas' school friends were turning five, he told me that he wanted a firefighter-themed birthday party. This didn't come as too much of a surprise as Lukas has always enjoyed visiting our neighborhood fire station and even has rain gear decked out in the firefighting theme.
When it came time to plan the actual party, we came up with the idea to have a mini-obstacle course for the junior firefighters and I even found a how-to video for a firetruck cake on Pinterest. Lukas invited several of his church friends and a couple of school friends. Since we included siblings in the list, we ended up with 15 children at the party and all brought a least one parent along with them! I hope you enjoy the photos and videos we took of the party that we had for him yesterday.
This was the photo we attached to his Evite invitation
Rain was threatening and the humidity outside was so high that we set up the food tables inside the house
The guests loaded up on snacks to fuel their bodies for the obstacle course at the beginning of the party
Here's Lukas holding the "fire extinguisher" for the obstacle course. Our German family will be pleased to see that we used their national colors as the official party colors. :-)
Here are the "flames" that I drew and colored ahead of time and Olli hung at different distances from Lukas' soccer goals.
This is the finish line (another soccer goal) that the junior fire-fighters ran through as they "rescued" the towel person we made for the course.
This video shows Lukas running the obstacle course (a second time since I was late in recording his first run)
Some of the junior fire-fighters (Isaac B., Ethan, Felix, Lukas and Moritz)
A few more of the junior-firefighters (Paige, Isabel, Cara and Lottie)
After each junior firefighter completed the "training course", we headed to the local fire station to climb in and on some real fire trucks! (Lottie, Isabel, Cara, Felix, Moritz, Isaac M.) As we were walking up to the station, the real-life firefighters were just returning from an emergency call regarding a car fire so the kids got to see the trucks with their lights flashing backing into the station.
A few of the kids got to hang on the fire pole
Lukas and his friends in the back of a fire truck
Isabel in the driver's seat of the main truck
It began to rain just as we sat down for pizza in the dining room. The kids had really worked up an appetite!
A few of the younger kids eating pizza at their very own table.
Naturally, after pizza, comes cake so the snack table transformed into a dessert table
My labor of love for my five year old son!
Lukas blowing out the candles on his fire truck birthday cake.
Lukas turned five years old this past Thursday! We celebrated all day long on his special day and had a birthday party for him this past weekend. The following is a photo log of the various celebrations.
Lukas woke up before his alarm and began singing to himself until it was time to get out of bed. We then went downstairs as a family and had a little celebration for him before he went to school.
Here is Olli lighting Lukas' "life candles" before we eat and sing Happy Birthday to him. These candles are different from the American tradition as they are not usually on a cake and you don't blow them out to make a wish, but have them lit whenever you're at the table throughout your birthday.
The first gift Lukas opened was from Oma and Opa. It is the wooden trailer that goes with the wooden truck that they gave him a few years ago. He knew exactly what it was for and went directly into the playroom to retrieve his truck and attach the trailer.
Tante Steffi (and family) gave Lukas a fun German game similar to "20 questions".
Yiayia and Grandpa gave Lukas a build-your-own Lego helicopter. The first words out of his mouth were, "I always wanted one of these!" and he built it (with very minimal help) later that evening.
We gave him a CD of his current favorite "musical artist" known from the PBS interludes called Steve Songs. Lukas and I went on a "date" to see Steve at a concert last fall.
He also got a "scanner" complete with a cash register, conveyer belt and fake foods with bar codes. Isabel is also a great fan of this toy.
This Tri-Level Matchbox Car Garage was on the top of Lukas' wish-list.
This is Lukas at his pre-school in his hand-made crown where Isabel and I joined his class for lunch to serve fruit kabobs that the kids and I made the night before. They were a big hit!
Thea Lesley and Uncle Derrick's gift for Lukas was waiting on the doorstep when we arrived home from school that day. I think it's called a tele-handler and he loves it. He nicknamed it "Trucky"within the first few minutes of playing with it--the first time I've known Lukas to give a toy a name!
