6 years old!

Happy Birthday, Lily!  

Such a big girl you are. We love you to the moon and back!

Since her birthday was on Saturday we had the birthday party that afternoon. Lily picked a princess fairy theme, and it was such a nice party. All things pink and purple, a princess castle cake, balloons, bubbles, paper tissue flowers (see above) that Neil made, happy little princesses and fairies, a treasure hunt, decorating their own little treasure chests, games and fun, and the predicted bad weather never came - it was the perfect party, if you ask Princess Lily.

The cake I made turned out nice, if I may say so myself. :)

P.S. And where was Finn? He was invited to another birthday party, and he couldn't decide for the longest time if he wanted to attend that. But finally I told him to go and have fun, since at Lily's party he would be the only boy. So I took him to that other party in the afternoon, and on the way he confided in me that the birthday girl (she is in his class) has a little crush on him. Well, it turned out that he was the only boy she invited! Ha ha. (He still had fun though and was back before our party ended, so all was well.)

Time for an update!

A lot has happened in the past month. Neil had knee surgery to repair the meniscus in his left knee and to remove two screws that were put in when his ACL was replaced 15 years ago. After two weeks at home he has returned to work.

While Neil was recovering at home I left for a weekend to visit my sister in England, where she lives with a friend in the most lovely cottage I've ever seen. It was a wonderful time.

500 years old, and the restauration is almost complete. What a beauty, inside and out!

Lady Marian and Robin Hood in Nottingham :)

Cricket! Perfect English afternoon pasttime.

Taking a walk and enjoying the countryside with Max

And, on May 4th, Princess Lily turned 6 and celebrated princess style with her little friends. Party pictures to follow in a separate post!

The heir's hair

Since Finn's hair draws so much attention from assorted family members :) , here is a post dedicated to his latest haircut. He really loves his hair long, but it was so much longer in the back than the front that I talked him into getting the back trimmed. Well, the trim turned into a real haircut, much shorter than he wanted it, and not quite what I had told the hair dresser to do. (We ordered chin length all around.) I guess that is the way it goes with hair stylists - once they have those scissors in their hands there is just no stopping them.

So now the back looks like this. 

And the front like this. I like his new cut, it's funky and "cool" (especially how she cut the front/side), but I must admit it broke my heart a little when I saw a few silent tears slide down Finn's face as she was cutting away and he realized just how short it was going to be. 

I keep telling him it looks different, but good and that it will grow back. ("But I don't WANT different!" - he is my child that hates change) And I told him that next time I will take him somewhere else and make sure they don't cut off more than we want. Last night he lay in bed and told me he missed his long hair and that he doesn't want to go to school until it has all grown back. Luckily, I did get him out the door without a fuss this morning and now I am hoping he will only hear good things about his new 'do. 

And ya'll probably thought having a boy is easy when it comes to looks and clothes and such!

☺

Easter!

Happy Easter from Finn and Lily! Hope you enjoyed the holidays.

We took a little trip to visit friends for a few days. Hello there, Tilly!

Before we got there though, we had to load up the car. Finn and Lily were just a tad excited.

We had an awesome time with our friends! They live in the allgaeu region (Allgäu in German), about 2.5 hours south west of us. Since spring refuses to come this year we had to pack snow gear, but that didn't stop us from having fun.

This is an old castle ruin in Neuravensburg. The kids loved the hike and exploring the ruin.

And practicing their archery skills!

Since our two 5-year-old girls shared a room and rose early every morning, a nap was needed in the afternoon. Didn't take much to convince daddy to join in.

Our friends live in a small rural community in the 4-country-region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein) near Lake Constance (Bodensee). It is beautiful there, even though we couldn't see the Austrian mountains because of the clouds. But the neighbours had horses, so all was well. :)

And there were cows, too. The kids helped in the barn with the milking and the feeding of the calves. To say they really enjoyed that would be the understatement of the century. Apparently not much can top a calf sucking on your whole hand.

Easter Sunday. We woke up to a fresh layer of wet snow. I guess the weather is trying to make up for the warm, green Christmas we had. We still had a very nice Easter Sunday, with Easter baskets, church, special treats and an egg hunt.

By mid-afternoon the snow around the house had melted so we could have an Easter egg hunt outside.

The kids loved it!

Fourth advent or Easter? :) But the snowy weather aside, we had a really nice Easter holiday. And we can't wait to go back to our friends' house for some summer fun in the mountains and on Lake Constance. Thank you for being such great hosts!

And here are two litte videos. Finn is getting really good at shooting his bow and arrow, and Neil treated us to a performance of Gangnam style dancing.

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