Finley Gets Ready to Turn Four

We've been counting down since November began (with a paper chain) and yesterday was the main event, Finley turned four!!  This is the first year that he truly had a sense of what a birthday is and how it is celebrated.  We've had a lot of planning to do and it all paid off because Finley's birthday week was   lots of fun and he enjoyed every minute of it.

On Thursday, I took the morning off from school and went into Finley's class to read a book, do a project, and share snack.  Finley proudly sat beside me and helped me hold the book as I read What Can A Crane Pick Up? to his eager classmates.  Then, each child colored in a picture of a crane and then picked something silly for it to pick up from a selection of clip art that I had brought.  Finley chose a piece of pizza, others chose fairy castles, airplanes, apple trees, whales, pirate ships, etc.  We put each page into a binder with page protectors and now the kids keep their new "book" in the class library.  They were quite pleased with themselves!! Then, we passed out the snack that Finley had picked out from the supermarket: green grapes and Kix.  They sang "Happy Birthday" in english and hebrew after saying the blessing over the food and we all ate up.  I had a little bit of time left, so I read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish to Finley and his new best bud before saying goodbye.  It was so fun to see Finley in action where he spends so much of his time these days and quite interesting to be the parent in the classroom, not the teacher!

Friday after school, Finley and Dagny's grandparents from New York arrived and joined us for Tot Shabbat at temple.  Finley got to hear "Happy Birthday" in hebrew again during the service and he just beamed.  After putting the kids to bed that night, we really got the party prep underway.  Hanging streamers and putting up all the laminated photo copies of Finley's favorite train illustrations from at least a dozen of his favorite books.  Not to mention hang up all the name trains that I made for Finley and each of his guests :) Here are Finley and Dagny's:

The basement was nearly ready, but it wasn't worth cleaning up all the toys and such until right before the party since both kids ADORE playing down there all the time.  The next morning, Finley and the rest of the house went to his sports class as I continued to get the house in party mode.  We took a lovely walk/bike ride around the neighborhood afterwards and then Finley and I zoomed off to buy two birthday balloons: one for the tree near the end of the driveway and one for the basement (i.e. one for Dagny and one for Finley).  The kids had some lunch and then it was down for early naps while the grown ups finished up setting up the basement, putting out the snacks, etc. for the party.