Happy Birthday, Daniel! 4 years already?

Not sure how this happened, but Daniel just turned 4. Really?
Time surely flies!

I am very excited to see how Daniel has grown in 4 years, and how much fun he is right now. He knows so much and understands a lot. He is starting to show passion for nature and building things. We can really have good discussions with him, and he sometimes comes up with much better ideas than we do. In most cases, he is very caring, especially around his little sister - although he also likes to play rough and needs to be reminded that he is stronger than he thinks he is.
He is still very active and loves trying new things. He loves to climb (everywhere if it was just for him), he is able to swim without fins and just learned to bike without training wheels on the eve of his 4th birthday. We were so proud!

Daniel is still interested in reading and he understands how to decipher words. It's still a slow process for him and doesn't make reading quite rewarding yet. On the language front, Daniel has now really become trilingual. His German at home is completely fluent, and he is able to make basic French sentences when needed. He still doesn't show much interest in talking to me in French a lot (although he might say something here and there), but when visiting our French family, he can now easily talk to them. It's still very rudimentary language, but it's working nevertheless. So exciting to see that 4 years of trying to teach him French are paying off.
Now I need to be careful to continue speaking French, even though English seems to be the easier language when he responds in English and I have to explain complex things. It's become a mental challenge for me. Oh well, now it's a challenge for both of us.


We had the birthday party at the same place as last year, at Safarirun, and it was a good choice again this year. Everyone had fun and it turned out to be an easy birthday to organize.