Emilie's Birthday

Our busy birthday season begins on May 20th with Micaela's birthday and then just 4 short days later, it's Emilie's birthday. Then, Rebecca's is June 21st. Three birthdays in a month. Yikes! We get a two month break until James' birthday arrives on August 30th.

Emilie's first gifts of the day were a day off school, a trip to Burg Eltz and a wooden sword.

Micaela didn't want us to take pictures on her birthday, but Emilie thought it would be OK on hers. Becca doesn't look happy that all these presents are for her big sister.

Opening the big one

Just what she wanted -- the Playmobil Egyptian Pyramid. Em has been studying Egypt at school and found it all fascinating.

Get ready, Micaela. You and James are going to have to put this together.

Playmobil makes great toys, but they can be pricey in the U.S. Here in Germany, Playmobil sets costs significantly less. That gets a thumbs-up from me.

Micaela and James getting down to work

Here's Em's cake -- a heart-shaped one baked in a pottery bowl I bought in Poland.

Emilie requested Moosetracks ice cream for her birthday, which we cannot find in Germany. A few times, we've made our own with vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup and diced Reese's Peanut Butter cups (although the Reese's froze and were hard to bite). When I went shopping, however, they were all out of Reese's at the story which is not surprising since they only have 4 or 5 packs on the American shelves. I had to improvise. On-line I found a recipe for peanut butter sauce for ice cream. No one complained about the lack of Reese's when they tasted the warm peanutty sauce.

The pyramid comes with gold treasure, pharaohs, scorpions, mummies and grave robbers.