April Milestones

Now that we’ve passed the 5th birthday milestone, mom was prepared that things might go a little quiet on the blogging front without much to report on that was new. I guess Kevin decided we couldn’t have that, and set about giving me something to write about – He can cycle on two wheels!

I should mention that while he’s pretty well on track ( I seem to remember the training wheels going off my Pink Schwinn somewhere between 5 &6) it’s felt like he’s behind the curve here in one of the cycling capitals of the world. It’s not uncommon here to see 3 & 4 year olds on 12 inch cycles without training wheels zipping along with their 5-foot safety flag waving alongside. Kevin had so far resisted any attempt to remove his training wheels for ‘practice’.

It reminded me very much of when we were trying to get him to walk……he went directly from crawling to running across the room. No tries, no stumbles…..He takes his time (practicing in his sleep?!) and just as we start to wonder…..he busts out a brand new capability like he’s been doing it forever.

He’s already able to cycle to the shops in the center of town, go to the recreational lake/forest area near his dad’s place….soon I’m sure he’ll be out-cycling mom, and be a true Dutchy cycling everywhere!

Here is a video from the end of the afternoon on that first day of cycling…this is near to dad’s house, and dad’s using his cameraphone….it might not be the best quality (and the proud papa Dutch commentary is an added bonus) but it’s clear to see how proud of this accomplishment he is……as are we!

Birthday Boy

It's *only * been, like, a month (!) since Little Man turned 5.........

So, before I have to start planning for the next birthday, here are some photos/video of both the day itself and the long anticipated (if you're the b-day boy) party!

I know, it took me long enough..... :-)

These were on the big day, before we loaded the car for school that day (Yes, we took the balloons to school and tied them to the special chair/throne they the birthday kid gets to sit in).

For the class, we made little favor tubes with stickers, temporary tatooes, confetti, a balloon, a self inking stamp and small candies. Here is a photo of the contents and then the final package once it was all in the tubes.

I ordered the boxes for the cupcakes from ebay, and I also ordered smaller boxes for the favors at the same time from the same store.... but, what I got when I opened the package from hong kong were these little tubes and the cupcakes boxes. There wasn't time to re-order before the party, so Mom just had to make do. The end result wasn't too bad, if I'm allowed to say so?

As I already admitted in my last post, I 'cheated' on the cupcakes and ordered them rather than made them myself. Still, Kevin was happy with them! Maybe next year I'll be brave enough to make the cupcakes from scratch myself......

For the party on Saturday we did small favor bags with cupcakes, all in the theme of (of course) Cars. Everyone got a bag and a Cars balloon (or a star ballon if you one of the three girls) when they left the party. Since we had 12 kids for the party, compared to 25 plus in the class, we could have some small gifts in the bags as well.

The party on Saturday for 12 was at a bowling and event center in the next town over, Hoofddorp. They had a package for birthday parties that included birthday cake (you couldn't bring your own), drinks and then 1 1/2 hours bowling. We had three lanes - you can only have 6 kids per lane, and then I had an extra lane for the parents, which worked well - most of the parents stayed and bowled and had a good time, and I had some some support. I wouldn't advise trying to handle 12 kids in a bowling alley solo! The last hour of bowling was "disco" or cosmic bowling with blacklight and dance music. The kids all got glow in the dark necklaces to wear, and we were done entertaining by 4pm. I still think next year, Mom might scale it back to 6-8 kids, sizewise...........but I'm not thinking about next year yet! (no, really, I'm not!) :-)

As you can see from the video, Kevin got some great presents and we'll sign off with a photo of the (future) bowling phenom in action!