"I was always 3 and now I'm 4!"

Yes, our big boy turned 4 years old last month! It's a bit amazing, because it seems that both our kids are so grown up now. Although not grown up enough not to need a pre-party nap:

But to compare how much Oscar has changed in the last two years, here's a picture of him putting a ball through the "birdhouse door" on his birthday:

And here's Oscar trying the same thing two years ago:

As for his preferences, he's pretty consistent. Two years ago. And now:

Oscar likes: candy, chocolate, ice cream, bananas, raisins, oatmeal, eating in general (he's still one of the biggest eaters at Kita), U-Bahn, trains (especially his toy trains and tracks at the moment), planes, playing soccer (but only with his personal ball), riding a (pedal-)bike, SWIMMING, Clara, Kristina, his best friend Lilli, his purple-striped leggins (even though he gets teased for wearing them to Kita), singing and making music (he has a bunch of "instruments" in heavy rotation - recorder, harmonica, xylophone, etc), puzzles, reading, babies (and still very much *his* baby doll), vacations, family, snuggles, talking .... and many other things.

Oscar doesn't like: loud noises, movies of any kind (though we watch the Sandmännchen every night, and we can sometimes watch Youtube clips with him), bees, falling asleep by himself. I think he's fine with birthday candles now.

We had a nice series of parties for Oscar: First with Oma and Opa, then with some friends, cake, games, and presents at the playground, and finally he got to have another party at Kita a couple of days later. The kids were pretty excited to play Topfschlagen and Verhexte Nuss together, even when we started rationing the candy we were giving out as prizes.

Oscar's birthday always marks the end of summer for us, and this year it fell literally on the last Saturday of summer vacation. Since then, we've been back to work and to school, and to Kita, and we've all been very busy and trying to get used to all of our responsibilities again.