William is FOUR!

It is hard to believe that this little boy was almost 2 when we moved here and now we are celebrating his FOURTH birthday! He requested over and over a beach birthday party, but at this point in the game I needed easy (we’ve just had wayy to much going on)– so we had it at a place here in Abu Dhabi called Play and Learn.  They did it all, we just showed up with cupcakes and party favors. Nice!  I knew he’d love having his birthday there since he is a huge fan of playing there. 

I found some plain little cups at Ace Hardware of all places and bought a bunch a couple months ago knowing that I’d need something for party favors.,. SO glad I did that and had them here.. I also found 2 bags of suckers leftover from Halloween (shame, I know) and added a pack of gummy bears to it and… boom. party favors complete.  The kids loved them, so that is all that matters.

Ben 10 is a strange character if I do say so myself.  for some reason Will loves him… I “think” he is some sort of monster fighting super hero dude?!?  Anyways, He thought it was SO COOL that his name was on the Ben 10 cupcake toppers.. ordered the digital file from etsy… I just love doing that.

Cakes are expensive here and pretty nasty – I’ve never eaten one I really liked, so I made the cupcakes / icing.. cheap and good. can’t beat that.  It dawned on me the day before the party that the parents will be hungry since the party was from 11-1 so I made turkey/cheese panini’s and put out a big basket of chips… since we had a bigger turn out than we anticipated from the parents, Charles and I cut the sandwiches in half at the last minute to make them go further.. ha.  the kids got burger king kids meals

I requested that there be no microphone used. yes, in this small room they usually have a party host shouting loudly over the bumping club music (that I also did not allow).  I had to bring in my own CD so they would not play the rap music with cuss words in it.. I’m serious.. they play the most inappropriate things  for kids… it is super annoying to go to these parties usually, but with those two changes it was really pleasant.

Video of them singing happy birthday to him… Charles said when he was little he acted the same way.. it embarrassed him!! sweet boy!!

Lots of kids came from his class!

When we got home we opened all his gifts, his friends were super generous and he had a BLAST with his new toys!

This last week at school Will was ‘Star of the Week’ – They have the privilege of bringing home Angus the dog and are supposed to bring back pictures of themselves with Angus to share with the class.  Will was ALL ABOUT this and was extremely thrilled to be ‘star of the week’ – he told me over and over again how excited he was.  how precious.

Another big deal this week was Will’s first field trip!  We went to the Royal Stables.  I drove Will, 2 of his buddies and baby Julia.   I was floored that parents just let their 4 year olds just go with whoever…  There was only a few of us that drove and the rest of the parents just let their kids hop into a car in a foreign country with people they did not know (and have never met!)... I could not believe it.

It was cute to watch him interact with his buddies and see how he was in that setting. I have to say, I did not give Will enough credit. He was really well behaved and is much more obedient than I would have predicted… however -

One of the kids was an extreme behavior problem the whole day and at the very end he tried getting rough with Will… After he gave Will a swift punch, I was glad to see Will standing up for himself and defended against the boy.. but of course I had to say..”no, Will, Don’t hit!” as they were locked up holding each others shoulders.. I wanted to tell him Good Job, Son.. he deserved it. Lets be honest after a long day with that child I wanted to wrestle him too. ha.

Oh and I asked Will who he thinks the prettiest girl in his class is and he said “Marine” (she is the one in the flowered dress waving)… I’m glad to know my boy has good taste. She is precious.