June 11th, 2017

This past Spring, we celebrated two birthdays within our immediate family. Mine coincided with our annual Birthday visit with Dear and Pop and S’s was on the tail-end of our Spring Break trip to Italy. In both cases, we were so grateful for the community around us that came to celebrate life! Here’s a glance back at these milestone moments in our family…

March

Dear and Pop flew in a few days before my actual birthday and spent a week loving on our family. It was their third visit in our first sixteen months of living here in Germany. It was fun to see their familiarity with our village and so many aspects of German life.

On the morning of my birthday, I wished my Mami a “Happy Birthing Day.” Its her day too. 😉

We all headed downtown where there was a big celebration going on. We joked that the whole city came out to celebrate my birthday. Kuddos to Mein Mann for such a fabulous birthday party!!

 

 

 

Turns out Mein Mann actually had a more personal birthday celebration up his sleeve that took me COMPLETELY by surprise! Later that evening, my dear friends Amy and Clara and their families all showed up on our doorstep to celebrate life…my life!

 

Mein Mann spoiled me in the best ways! I loved how my parents got to meet such an important part of our community. The faces around our table that evening were my gift!!

April

We flew to Italy for the boys’ Spring Break and spent a week exploring and enjoying Cinque Terre, Florence, Cortona, Perugia, Lake Trasimeno and Assisi. It was incredible!

Our sweet S woke up to his 6th birthday in Italy and to the gift of his own gum packages! We held off gum chewing until our boys were both six to help differentiate chewing food and swallowing it with the joys of gum chewing without swallowing it…hopefully. S was delighted to reach this little milestone in his young life! We then caught our flight back to Germany to celebrate his birthday and open more presents. He loved his new bike! Two countries in one day for our globetrotting six year old!

We went to the bakery the following day and picked out different pieces of cake to celebrate!

On Sunday afternoon, we held a birthday party at the Dino park aka the Gartenschau. We gathered together a couple of S’s school and village friends and enjoyed the beautiful weather on our last day of Spring Break. As an added bonus, he met up with some other friends who were also at the park. We love how the outdoors is a magnet for families here in Germany. S had been waiting to go down the big slide at the park that was restricted for kids six and up. Our little adventurer was elated to take his first slide down…and then the next and the next!

Having a birthday fall over Spring Break can be tricky to coordinate with the travel plans of other families so we were super grateful S could be surrounded with his favorite playmates for such a fun and adventurous party, German style. How we love him! Our lil guy lives out a saying on one of his many orange shirts…”Life is meant for good friends and great adventure.” We couldn’t agree more! Happy 6th Birthday!!!