Sunday, December 28, 2014

Markovka Turns 6!

Six years old!!! Just a few “minutes” ago you were a cute baby!!
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And now…missing a tooth (that was pulled out right on Christmas), but we still want to squish your cheeks!
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Mark’s birthday was on Sunday this year, so he got to dress up early in the morning and even open his gifts before church. Frisbee, some sticker books, Wii game, Dinosaur Playmobil, Darth Vader-you know, the regular boy stuff.
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Mark had a celebration of his birthday that took three days, actually. On Saturday before his birthday, we repeated our last year’s daytrip to Stoke-on-Trent for some awesome waterpark fun at Water World. We brought a couple of older teenage friends with us that made the day even more fun for the kids.
On Sunday after church, we had friends over for some cake. The more the merrier, right? This was the “family” birthday cake.
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On Tuesday after Mark’s birthday, we decided to have Mark’s birthday party. It’s always so tricky to figure out when people can come to the party as we are in the middle of the holiday season with people having time off, travelling and visiting family. Tuesday was a good choice for most, but still a few boys couldn’t come. After all, Mark had three friends from school and two from our street.
The theme of the birthday party was STAR WARS.
First, Robert helped the boys make their own light sabers out of foam pipe insulators and duct tape. They loved them! Easy to make and easy to smack each other without hurting too much. 
Then Alex did Jedi training in our backyard. He loved being in charge, of course. I am sure he taught them some Star Wars dance moves as well.
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Robert took them then to play some sort of tag in the Memorial fields next to us.
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When they came back, it was time for lunch-pizza, cucumbers and grapes.
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Mark and I had prepared a difficult memory game with lots of Star Wars characters. They loved this game.
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And they loved this Scavenger Hunt Game. They were excellent at getting clues and running around like a herd of little hippos finding all the Star Wars figurines.
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Finally, it was time for “cake”, that was actually cupcakes this year.
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Made to order by Robert-double edged light saber. Easiest birthday creation so far!
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It was a bit tricky to blow out the candles though.
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After singing “Happy Birthday”, we went a bit American and a bit British on the tradition. Normally at British kids’ birthday parties, you just give a piece of cake in a napkin to kids to take home, but we just had them eat their cupcakes at the party, if they wanted. We did wait till children had gone home to open gifts. Mark loved all the attention, of course.
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Phew…the end of celebrations. They are always fun, but sometimes a lot of work, despite our constant attempt to keep things easy (and they are pretty laid back most of the time).
Our sweet-sweet Mark! We love you more than ever! You are so fun, kind, goofy, smart and always trying to make the right choice. A few things that Mark learned this year is READ really well. He loves learning, reading and math. He is also learning to play the piano (taught by me) and is into dot-to-dot challenging books.
A few of his favorites are:
  • Favorite color-orange.
  • Favorite movie-Mr. Peabody and Sherman.
  • Favorite subject at school-math.
  • Favorite Song-Beat It by Michael Jackson.
  • Favorite ice cream flavor-bubblegum.
  • Favorite dinner food-spaghetti.
  • Best friend-undecided.
  • Favorite book-Harry Potter.
  • Favorite place he’s travelled to-Sardinia.
  • Favorite animal-scorpion (what?).
  • What he wants to be when he grows up-Paleontologist.
  • Favorite chore- folding and putting away his laundry while listening to my ipod.
And here is a THEN picture (6 years ago in Florida).
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And NOW (December 28th in England).
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