This picture is sideways (the head of the little man is on the left. You can see he has pink eyes).
Today is Olivia's birthday. She is 3 years old and quite proud of it! She and Graham are both in bed now and one of the last things I heard her say as I put her in her room for bed was her asking me to sing the Kagemand song. Kagemand is Danish for Cake Man, essentially. It is a Danish tradition on a child's birthday to bake them a brunsviger in the shape of a man or woman with candy all over it. Brunsviger is a sweet bread with brown sugar and cinnamon spread over it, baked, and then topped with powdered sugar frosting. It is really good!
This morning when Olivia woke up, Matthew and I went into her room and dumped a lot of balloons on her head. I thought she would love it but she was mostly just confused and/or overwhelmed. She liked it but was so shy and quiet. Our downstairs neighbors can attest to the fact that she is never quiet or shy in the morning- she usually wakes up hopping and never really stops, but is particularly full of energy in the morning. Then Matthew presented her with the Kagemand he had made for her pictured above. She loved it! Matthew had candles on it and she blew them out. It was cut up and devoured throughout the day by all of us. It was excellent brunviger!
Next we gave O her presents.
Her favorite present by far was this bike we got for her. She was so excited about it and, as Matthew noticed, touched every square inch of it after opening it.
After opening presents and eating brunsviger for awhile and just lazying around, we went to a playground/ park area called Bondegården legeplads
This park has a lot of things to play with and look at. There are horses, ponies, rabbits, pigs, goats, chickens, zipline, castle, bridge, bikes, etc. We spent 3 hours or so wandering around and letting Olivia go nuts. Graham had some fun too.
Behind the play castle there was a little village of wood houses, some more dilapidated than others, that you could go in and play in.
Many of them were a lawsuit waiting to happen- like this one. They were all so cool and fun.
When we got home in the early evening Matthew took Olivia down to ride her new bike while I made dinner. She just loves that bike!
Last week I asked Olivia what she wanted for her birthday dinner and, without hesitation, she told me she wanted oatmeal. She eats oatmeal for breakfast most days and loves it. I think that is just great, but she would not be eating it for her birthday dinner! So I said- how about pizza?! She said no at first but eventually she came around to the idea. Her compromise was to have both pizza and oatmeal for dinner. My compromise was to have pizza for dinner and oatmeal for breakfast the next day. Done!
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