21 April 2012

A Half Birthday

Explaining the Color Wheel
Painting
Because T1's birthday is in the summer holidays, she loses out on a birthday celebration with her friends. The German tradition prevents her celebrating it before the actual day (that's a huge no-no for Germans) while when school starts again we head directly into New Year's, Herbstferien, and other holidays.

The cake
This year, I brought a cake in for her school celebration in the fall, but we just couldn't manage to put together a real birthday celebration that didn't run across other holidays. Although I increasingly see the clever fashion of some parents giving birthday celebration invitations to the class during a holiday when everyone can be expected to either be a. out of town or b. unable to eat what is provided, that wasn't our goal, which was to allow T1 to enjoy her birthday party with her friends.

So we had a Winnie Pooh-style birthday (at the around half year mark). As usual, although I handed out invitations before the spring holidays with a 3 week RSVP request, gave my phone number and e-mail, and sent out a request by e-mail a week before (because the venue required booking), only 3/12 parents RSVPed and we needed to call everyone. Sigh.

I thought this was amazing: the
 (Russian) girl who did this was
very reluctant to share the (simple)
techique with the other girls.
We went to Paint Your Style and the kids had a great time. The girls are all in the stereotypical horse-loving stage and all chose horse figurines to paint, while the boys took Fussball piggybanks. Who needs to impose gender roles when they do so themselves?


Pizza and Cake
After, we walked them across the street to a pizza parlor we had booked a table out, ordered pizza, used the place mats and goody bags I brought back from the States (Cars theme for the boys, Fairies for the girls) and enjoyed the cake I had brought

I think we all had a good time and after all the children were picked up, T1's best friend and her dad joined us for an ice cream at a local Eisladen to cap off the day.

2 comments:

lytha said...

omgosh there're pottery painting bars in berlin! that's it. i'm thoroughly disgusted with cologne.

i LOVEd pottery painting back in seattle! i would bring all my friends. now, i have no friends, but i would go alone to paint pottery!

G in Berlin said...

Well now, because I think you should be able to paint:
http://www.pottery-art-cafe.de/
here is a studio for you in Cologne. I am so sorry we weren't able to meet u last time I was closer to you, but with the kids and the initial 4+ hour drive, we never seem to get the chance to do anything at all but hang with the in-laws (we never even get to see local towns). Have you thought of coming in for the Webmu weekend? I'm not certain how much of the actual event I will do, but I have a girlfriend visiting as well and we expect to leave the kids behind and have some fun touristing.