Happy Birthday William!

William is Six!

For breakfast this morning we had our usual birthday pancakes with whipped cream and berries.

Birthday Boy at Breakfast

You’ll notice that both William and his pancake are missing a bottom tooth.  Henry’s pancake had all its teeth.

Henry and his Pancake

After that we had to skedaddle to school, but there was snow so the boys were able to have a snowball fight on the way.  At school William got to wear the birthday crown that he made yesterday and to hand out treats to his classmates.  He chose to introduce them to an American favorite: rice krispie treats (thank you Opa for bringing the rice krispies).  He also gave everyone colored streamers.  The teacher invited William to stand on the table with his crown on, and everyone sang Happy Birthday (in Dutch and in English) and made a big mess with their streamers.  The report is that most of the kids thought the rice krispie treats were good, although one girl seemed confused by hers, perhaps because it was bright blue.

After your class celebrates here, you get to choose two birthday helpers and take them with you to all the other classrooms to give the teachers a treat (chocolate).  In return the teacher signs a birthday card for you (with stickers).  William chose Henry and a boy named Ruben as his birthday helpers.  Apparently Ruben knows everyone, so they even went into the principal’s office.

William's Crown and Cake

Wednesday’s are half days in Dutch schools, so we stopped at a bakkerij to pick out a cake on the way home for lunch (our oven doesn’t work).  William chose a Christoffeltaart, which turns out to be a delicious confection of merengue, whipped cream and chocolate.  Our Dutch friend Maarten came over for lunch and presented the boys with Legos.  William spent the rest of the afternoon building a Lego firetruck and a Lego helicopter.  He thinks the Legos are the best gift, although “the bike is good too”.  All in all, it’s been a happy day for William and his family.