The grande finale ...

Today was our last part of Andrin's festivities. We are all ready for a break and some quiet time! But we had a visit from Opa Jumbo, aunt Nicole (and baby) and uncle Jorrit, and Andrin's dear friend Nico.  Too bad that the weather was not good and Andrin's wish to be outside as much as possible could not be granted ... There was a big reason why he wanted to be outside ... 

our happy boy with his new John Deere tractor. He has been talking about wanting to have a tractor for such a long time ... 

Festivities No. 2

Today, Andrin celebrated his birthday with his friends. He was VERY excited and so happy to open up presents again. Even though he had a specific request for dinosaur cupcakes, he was too nervous to even eat it at his party.

Firewoman Bigna. 

Andrin got really shy when everyone sang for him. 

The doctor leaves his patient after cutting a whole in her tummy ... 

One of the many wonderful presents: A fishing game. 

Andrin is FOUR

We celebrated with Andrin his fourth birthday! As you will soon see, he had several parties. The first one was just with family on Friday. Thursday afternoon, he came down with a slight fever and we decided to keep him home from daycare on Friday, his actual birthday. In the morning, he was still pretty tired and slow, but by noon, he was his old self again. Bigna went to daycare with Andrin's cupcakes (he wanted to have butterfly cupcakes for daycare) and Andrin and Mami spent a day celebrating him.
Wherever we went, Andrin had to tell everyone that it was his birthday. We spent the morning at home, and then went to Mami's private practice (always a highlight for Andrin because there are so many toys to discover). They are finally remodeling the temporary office that Mami has been working in and she will (hopefully) be able to move into her new office by the beginning of November. After that, we went to the zoo. The gorillas, chimpanzees, and orang utans got a beautiful big outside cage. And the children finally got a nice climbing area. After that some more adventures in the city and back home for some more baking because we are having another party on Saturday.
It was hard for Andrin to wait until Papi finally got home to open his presents. But oh, he was a happy boy ...

The start into his birthday. He was wide awake around 4.30 am (later, it dawned on Mami that it was actually exactly the time that he was born 4 years ago!!!) and then fell asleep with Mami on the couch again. 

Something happened to our happy birthday sign ... 

Talking with Oma and Opa who are still vacationing in Croatia. 

Chatting with neighbors wishing Andrin well for his birthday. 

Fireman Andrin. 

Papi is helping to put together the pieces for Andrin's new lego car from Götti Thomas. 

Fireman Andrin rearranging the letters once again. 

The butterfly cupcakes that went to daycare without Andrin. 

At the new play area in the zoo. 

Talking, singing, or what ...

Pumpkins ...

We took advantage of a nice fall morning and went out to discover a farm near our house. Andrin was so happy to see all the pumpkins and we took three of them home and carved them to put on top of our mail box. He put in the requests for a sad, happy, and a mad face. After the visit to the farm, we also had to visit the goats.

The "real" one for a change ...

A couple weeks ago, Mami read something pretty exciting in the paper and even though Andrin was rather sceptic in the beginning, he had to tell Mami before he fell asleep that he actually really liked our outing. We rode a steam engine from Liestal to Waldenburg. On the way there, we took about three stops (one of them to fill up the water tank:) and it took us about one hour. On the return trip, we took the "normal" train and we took about ten stops and it took us about 20 minutes ... It was a nice trip on a beautiful fall afternoon. We even discovered on our way there where we will go to pick out some pumpkins ... But tonight, we all had to take a shower. We all looked like we just got off a steam train. Which we did, of course!