Bela's First Birthday Party!!!

Monday was Béla's first birthday, and while any normal Canadian family would have held the party on the weekend before, this is considered really bad luck in Germany, and just isn't done. We could have had it the weekend after, but it's a little too far past the date, and I'm heading to Oxford for work next Sunday, so it wasn't the best choice for us. And so we had a party starting from 4:00 on Monday afternoon.

I stayed home, and Béla was only at the daycare for half the day because it's still the introductory phase, which meant that we had time to Skype with my parents beforehand while he opened the packages from my family, and I was there to film him opening the present from daycare and playing around a bit before his nap. It also made the preparation a bit easier.

We invited three other babies and their parents, the mothers with whom I met most often while on parental leave. There was Kerrin and Sebastian and their daughter Hanna, who is only 9 days older than Béla. We met them at prenatal class, and the whole class met throughout the year as a playgroup, which I went to for a while. They live right around the corner as well, and Sebastian was also staying home with Hanna for the latter part of the year, so he and Jeremi met up quite often. Also in attendance were Hanna and Andrew (who I know from my German class, he's American and she's German, and they both work on the same campus as me) and their daughter Ella, who is two months older than Béla. Also there were Dai and Bakr (he's in my department at work, and she's his Egyptian-Canadian wife who I met with often, sometimes to help her with translation) and their son Eiad, who is four months younger than Béla. Also in attendance were Klaus and Sina and their six year-old son Yannik, our downstairs neighbours.

Here you can see Béla opening one of his presents - a riding car from Bakr and Dai. (That's Eiad in the upper right, and Ella in the lower left.)


A wider scene where you can see more parents. Unfortunately it was really cold and rainy (a high of maybe 15 C or so), so a garden party was out of the question. Instead we rearranged our furniture a bit to get three couches in the living room, which worked well for 10 adults, four babies and a child.
Kerrin and Hanna, trying out the crayon/paint pencils that they gave Béla.
Here Béla's working on opening a big package from Hanna, Andrew and Ella.
And here he's checking out the contents - a big picture book with scenes full of people and objects for pointing out what things are.
An overview of the spread - I cooked a lot getting ready for the party, and I don't think anyone left hungry! (Okay, so Bakr and Dai left hungry, but only because it's Ramadan, and they brought home lots of food to eat after sundown!)
Some highlights: the potato salad that looks like a fish, a classic family recipe from my Baba. I thought of her while making it too, and how she'd be happy to know it was being eaten at Béla's party. People were quite impressed by the radish scales and cucumber teeth.
A very delicious roast of beef, which was prepared the day before and served cold. I tried to get all the cooking done on Sunday and it was a cold buffet, so we only had to put things out.
The veggie tray, which was served with homemade tzatziki. There was an even prettier fruit platter, but it wasn't out yet, so it didn't get photographed.
One of my favourite breads - a rich braided loaf, each strand of which is stuffed with a poppyseed, shallot, parmesan cheese mixture. It was served with both butter and a slightly spicy spread made with puréed corn, butter, onions, and spices. (It's much tastier than it sounds.) My friend Julia had made the spread before and I liked it so much I wanted the recipe, so she re-borrowed the book from the library for me after she'd thought that she had bought it. It was all very complicated, but worth it, because the spread is that good.
And a perennial fall favourite (in Germany), Zwiebelkuchen (or onion tart), served with Federweißer, a sort of young wine.
We put a few lentils in some of the balloons so that they rattle, which made for lots of fun and lots of noise. Speaking of noise, my brother sent a variety of noise-making gifts for Béla, to get me back for a really loud electronic drum that I bought for Owen in Tokyo. You can see a xylophone in this picture, which Béla loves, but there is also a tambourine and a clapper that looks like a crocodile. In fact, due to some confusion with online ordering, we received a case of 12 individually-packaged crocodile clappers, some of which we then gave out as party favours. I'm sure they'll all find happy homes eventually!
Chris and Karen et al. also sent us a cool pop-up tent/tunnel complex, which we broke out at the end of the party when it was just Kerrin, Sebastian and Hanna. We still have to set it up in full and let him explore, but the early reviews are quite positive, despite falling in it, smashing his face, and bleeding all over from his lip at the end of the night. He was still in good spirits despite this and an earlier fall in the kitchen that left him with a big bruise on his forehead. I have to say, he dealt with all the fuss of his birthday with remarkable poise. I think he likes being the centre of attention!
And finally, we filmed a bunch of things throughout the day, and added in a couple balloon-themed clips from the two weeks prior, so you can get a taste of not only Béla's birthday party, but also see what he's up to these days - how big he is, what he can do, how generally cute he is... But just to warn you, it's about 11 minutes long, so get comfortable!