The Joehlski Adventure: Celebrations!

October 22nd is a big day in the Joehl household - Beckett's birthday and our wedding anniversary! Beckett was our little one year anniversary gift!

Let's first talk about how the heck it is possible that we have a 4 year old!?! We were told that the years would cruise by and boy oh boy, it is true! We also feel like he has aged and matured so much since we got to Poland - time can slow down at any point now!

I usually have a hard time the night before the birthday - when it is the last night that he/she is a certain age. Friday night was the last time that our little guy would be 3! Ugh! Below is the last family photo with our 3 year old!

Nothing sweeter than a daddy ready to his kids!

After putting the kiddos to bed, we put up the birthday decorations and finalized the gifts - most were bought long ago in the US. We usually fill the kids' bedroom floor with balloons the night before their birthday, so they are surprised when they wake up on their birthday morning. This year, with Reese on a really low bottom bunk, we decided to go a different route - we filled the floor of our main level and added decoration to the banisters. Beckett loved it!

Doesn't he look SO tall in this pic!?! He is thinning out!

We then quickly started back up on the Lego set that we began the night before! He sure is into Legos these days - following in his cousin, Nathan's, footsteps!

As it was Beckett's special day, he decided he wanted to open up his first present as soon as Reese got up!

The Bat Cave - awesome Craigslist find!

Then we headed off for donuts - a birthday tradition in our family! We have a Dunkin' Donuts not too far from our house that opens early!

Happy boy!

His third donut!

On to another couple gifts!

Mimicking her big brother! Ha!

He has been asking for this for months! Thank goodness he now has it!

Then we headed off to a fun indoor play area, called Fikoki - we LOVED it! SO fun! It cost us $6 per child for an hour of play, which was a perfect amount of time!

We searched high and low for a place that we could find helium balloons and couldn't get any without a week's notice, so we were pumped to find out that they had some at Fikoki! Beckett picked out Disney Planes and Reese picked Frozen's Anna - shocking! :)

It wasn't quite the same, without friends and family, but thank goodness for technology - we got to see some of our favorite people throughout the day! And we got some fun birthday cards in the mail for the big guy too!

Noodles for dinner and cupcakes for dessert!

We told him to make a wish and he said "I love my mom and I love my dad!" Melt our hearts, bud!

We couldn't forget to measuring the big four-year-old on the growth chart - up 3" from last year!

Showing us how much he has grown!

Beckett will be celebrating his birthday at school on Monday with his classmates! We made the only box of cupcake mix that we could find at the store and since we couldn't find containers of frosting, we used what was included with the cupcake mix and a little powder sugar and water combo! American kids would be SO disappointed if I pulled these out! Ha! Hopefully the sprinkles help!