Five

This very special boy turned FIVE yesterday. His Golden birthday. Daddy went to school with him and helped him read his favorite book to his class. It was a rousing rendition of Little Red Riding Hood, acted out with wooden figures. The parts of Mother, Little Red, and Grandmother were played by Noah, with Daddy as the Woodcutter (who happens to sound an awfully lot like Arnold Schwarzenegger with a Chinese accent). Last evening, after a dinner of homemade pizza and chocolate raspberry cake and several rounds of Happy Birthday!, Noah declared it to be "the best birthday party ever."

As Noah's birthday is followed immediately by St. Nicholas Day, we have in the past forgotten to even put out our shoes. St. Nicholas was very good to us though, and always came anyway, filling our shoes with chocolates, nuts, and clementines. This year, thanks to our Advent calendar with planned activities for each day leading up to Christmas, we not only remembered to put our shoes out, but also read some stories about the origin of St. Nicholas. It is important to us that the boys' understand the true meaning of our Christmas traditions, and their patience with longer and complex stories at such a young age amazes me.

We will be sharing more of our daily Advent activities as the month goes on.