Birthday @ Home

We had the chance to celebrate Rania's birthday with just family.  We had dinner and Rania chose pasta (spaghetti) for her meal choice.  Grandpa was a hero and delivered cupcakes to school so she could celebrate with her classmates.  He delivered a picture commemorating the event, and you can get more info from Grandpa and Grandma's blog.

We bought a nice fancy cake, and Rania was a super-trooper for eating her gluten-free cupcake without any fussing.  What an incredible blessing to have the best 5 year old in the whole world as our daughter!

Birthday Girl!

For the first time, Rania got to celebrate her birthday by choosing her friends to invite over.

In the past, we had always invited over family friends, but now that Rania is in school, she has a whole list of friends. Instead of doing a big birthday, she just had two good friends over for a play date after church.

The girls played a bit before opening presents and eating cake.

Our little girl is getting bigger and bigger right before our eyes!

Camp 5 Birthday

Reeve had fun at Peder's birthday party, which was at Camp 5, advertised as one of the largest indoor climbing gyms in Asia.  It is indeed impressive. 

It was also fun to help Peder celebrate his birthday.  As their kids are almost identical in age to ours, it has been fun to meet them and have a couple of play dates. 

International Fest

It is a great tradition at ISKL to celebrate International Fest.  While our pictures do not do justice to the great event, our kids sure did have fun.  Doug was commandeered to be the parade announcer -- for the parade of nations. 

The flag bearers sure did go fast, and Doug was rattling off the country names, but it sure wasn't the leisurely pace of an Olympic parade!  They also had a Chinese dragon dance and performers doing all sorts of acrobatics!

This year they brought the events to the people which was a nice change.  The gym was full of a massive amount of blow-up toys, and the kids spent a long time dancing and sliding and playing in the gym on all the huge blow-up castles and slides.  There was even a buckin' bronco (though the older kids dominated that.) 

The girls enjoyed getting tattoos, which were really painted on designs.  Of course, the youngest dominated the photos, saying "Take a picture.  Take a picture."

Shopping

For her Grade 1 project, Gabi had to take a picture of her using a re-usable shopping bag -- which we desperately try to do.  Using the "van lady" for most of our shopping sure does cut down on the vast majority of plastic, and we are still getting in the habit of carrying around re-usable cloth bags.  But Gabi is setting a good example for us!

Swimming Fun

After Saturday soccer, we were invited to the Inskeep's pool for some swimming.  Some delicious food and fun in the pool. 

End of Saturday Soccer

We came to the end of our season of Saturday soccer. Our last day was full of mini-games with all the teams, so it was a fun way to end the season. Then we had an awards ceremony where everyone got a trophy. It sure was fun coaching Gabi and Reeve. (Though I will admit it will be nice to have a few Saturdays free).

And Rania sure enjoyed playing with her friends while the older siblings were playing soccer!

Jungle Hop

As part of the 3rd grade curriculum, they had an evening celebration, "Jungle Hop" to raise funds for endangered species.  There were games, activities and dancing -- much like a school carnival.   There was also face painting -- which our girls sure enjoyed.