Here she is..the birthday girl!!! I think this is the biggest grin I have ever seen on her face. She was so excited that it was her birthday. The only thing she specifically asked for was for these two little friends to come to her party. So, we made a day of it and they had a blast!
She started her birthday morning by getting up super early (and I'm still not sure exactly what time that was). She was in our bedroom at 6:01 am, dressed, hair fixed, shoes on, bunny dressed, and asking me to put on her birthday ribbon. She has been saving this outfit ever since it came in the mail for her b-day. She has had it all planned out. Needless to say, it was a very long start to the morning since we were not picking up her little buddies until 9:30. She asked every 5 minutes if it was time yet. But the early morning was still a hit because we had hidden/saved for her bday some PopTarts that we found at the import store. Yummy!
After we picked up her friends, we hopped in a taxi and went to the play place that we found a while back. They played hard and had so much fun!
These three were inseparable. They were all laying on the trampoline while Regan bounced them around.
This was another favorite...kind of like a volcano of foam balls. It was on a timer, so you could fill it as much as possible and then it would shoot all the balls out of the top. The bookstore was not a quiet place while we were playing :) too much fun going on!
More fun...
Now, this cracked me up. Lauren discovered that you could "fly" in the ball pit and not get hurt. She flew from one side to the other and back!
It looks like Benjamin is running in the air. They came up with lots of little games. I could hardly keep up with them. I did not have to worry though because the entrance was guarded and kids could not leave without their parent.
Afterwards, we walked to McDonald's for lunch and ice cream. I thought we got lots of looks with 4 kids, but that day we had 6! I can't tell you how many times we heard "Wah! So, many kids! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6" (not in English, of course) I guess it was quite a sight.
Then we came home and crashed on the couch for a bit before all the siblings came over for cake and presents. They watched Monsters Inc. I really thought that they were going to fall asleep, but they all managed to stay awake.
The party was a very "Katherine" birthday party (nothing matched). I prefer for everything to match, but we just have to get what we can find and when we can find it. We brought party napkins with us, so the kids get to pick out their napkins at their birthday each year....she chose Minnie Mouse. Katherine really wanted a Dora party, but I could not find any Dora things until the day before the party...so she had Dora cups. She had a princess birthday ribbon. I found the Hello Kitty plates on a trip out of the country and the Winnie the Pooh party hat and the Strawberry Shortcake hat for her bunny were also last minute finds. So, she was one happy girl about all the party things. I just tried not to think about it not matching :)
I tried to pass off the star candles as being Dora, but I don't think she bought it :) The cake was good, but did not last nearly long enough!
Blowing out the candles.... 
She also got another birthday package in the mail. Love the HUGE hat!
What little girl doesn't like getting money in the mail?! I wish you could have seen her face when she traded it in for our local currency....LOTS of money! :) She can't wait to go spend it!
checking out her new colring book...
So, what else did we do besides a birthday celebration? Well, our bed collapsed in the middle of the night...so our landlord bought us a new one! :) YEAH! Our bed has been on its last leg for a year now, and it finally fell apart. He came within 30 minutes of us calling him, looked at our bed, said he would buy a new one, took the old bed away, and had a new one in all by the afternoon. It was great!
While he was looking at the bed, we asked if he would please put safety bars on the windows that could open. They are expensive, so I did not think he would do it, but he was in a very generous mood. He measured all the windows and had them made and installed within 2 days! Benjamin and Katherine liked pretending they were in jail. The weather has finally started to cool off a bit (in the upper 70's and 80's...occasional 90's but we'll take it!) so it is nice to be able to keep the windows open. Our Ayi was keeping all the windows closed for fear that Lauren would climb up and fall out. Now we can all be happy and safe!Oh! Our landlord also bought something for our bathroom...which we did not ask for. He was so excited to show me. He said the kids were going to love it! So, what did he get??? I can guarantee that you will NEVER guess on your own, so I will just tell you. He bought us a new shower head. This is not just any shower head. This shower head lights up when you turn the water on! It is like a disco in the shower! The lights change colors and flash....it is quite a sight :) The kids are now asking to take showers in the dark! :)
This is not a great picture, but it's the only one I could find that had the bars shown in the window. We heard lots of sirens, so we looked out the window and saw a building on fire.
They got the fire put out fairly quickly, but the wind brought all the smoke right to our apartment...so we had to close all of the windows again! :)
Regan got Katherine a scrapbook for her birthday. She was excited to get to do it with her big sister. She was having fun, but does not have quite the attention span yet for completing the task. That's ok. Lots of opportunities to scrapbook with her sister.
Regan has been asking all week to scrapbook with me, so we spent several hours Sunday afternoon making memories.
This is one of the pages in her scrapbook. I thought it was cute. She wanted me to print these pics off the internet. I think watching the wedding was one of the highlights of this year.... getting to see a real prince and princess get married. On the opposite page she has her postcard from some dear friends in London.
