on 9 july, our little mo turned four years old!

we had a tiny little covid-style distanced party for him in hyde park the weekend before his big day. we followed tradition and did a number-shaped piñata and shared ice lollies with friends (just the two families that met us in the park to help celebrate). it was really fun.

the night before the actual birthday, i snugged with moses in his bed and retold him the story of the day he was born. then ian put together little mo’s first bike! i had to snap a picture of the surprises set up in our living room before i went to bed, sooo excited to see moses’s reaction in the morning.

his face in these photos may give you an idea on if he was happy about it all or not 😉 the bike was a huge hit that caused a scream of joy, and mo was thrilled with his gift from gabriel – he had requested a “world play set” – not entirely sure what he meant, we went with a rug and some world landmark figurines and hit the jackpot. he got some new craft supplies from his grandparents and immediately put them to use with his kid brother, and then we headed straight outside to try out the bike!
 
 
we had cake (mango cake, at mo’s request) for breakfast! (funny story on these grainy photos – the next morning we saw that my camera had been stolen out of the back of our rental car 😦 while ian took the smashed-window car back to the rental place, the boys and i went to the store, bought a cake mix and made a replica cake. when daddy returned, we recreated the photos we had taken with the cake the day before, using a borrowed camera from a friend. said camera was set on manual focus and i couldn’t figure out how to change it to auto or adjust the self-timer settings, and we were rushing to get out the door to catch our rescheduled eurotunnel reservation for our road trip in france. it was devastating to lose the photos on the memory card inside the stolen camera, but i have these blurry rushed photos to compensate just a little, haha! and mo certainly didn’t mind blowing out the candles again and eating cake again!)
  
for the second year in a row, we spent moses’s birthday at his favourite place on earth – whipsnade zoo (about an hour outside of london; it had just reopened with lots of cover precautions). it was a rainy day but we had fun. here’s the birthday boy with his animal umbrella and birthday badge, ready to visit his beloved animals.

moses’s darling friend claire had been at the zoo a few days before us and hid a card and surprise for him by the bird show amphitheater. it was so fun to do a little treasure hunt to find this, and mo was so excited about the well-wishes and the balloons! and the other other photo i took at the zoo the whole day was one of a mama elephant and her calf playfully wrestling – they put on quite a show for us!
 

our four year old moses is full of energy, wonder, enthusiasm, creativity, questions, exuberance, and emotion. he is a very spirited little boy that keeps us on our toes and teaches us so much. it is such a joy and an honor to witness him growing up!! we are so lucky to be his mom and dad. i’m really excited to see the growth that happens leading up to a five-shaped piñata!