The birthday celebration...

True to birthday form, we've been celebrating Hadley's big day for half a week. I always find it a little confusing on what to do when their birthday falls in the middle of the week. We really want to celebrate as a family, which means we do it on the weekend. But I feel bad to let their birthday come and go during the week with no mention of it. So we usually end up celebrating twice. 

Dayven was gone in Virginia this week so the kids and I were flying solo. I grabbed a couple of balloons and a few surprises before Dayven headed out of town so Hadley could wake up and have some fun on her special day. She woke up on Wed and came downstairs to find her balloons and a couple of small presents - puzzles and crafts. This kid loves crafts so we immediately sat down to color. She used up every single sticker from the entire pack I gave her! We had a tour of Wyatt's new school scheduled that morning so we played on the playground for a bit after and then I took the kids to Sonic for lunch. None of us have ever been before but everyone's always talking about it so we decided to see what all the hype was about. We got completely lost AGAIN (dang GPS!) and it took us 45 minutes to get there. I was ready to bail on the whole idea since we had passed at least 5 McDonald's on our search, but the kids got it in their heads that it was a "Sonic X" restaurant and they would accept no substitutes. At that point I was hoping "sonic X" served liquor. We finally found it and it didn't disappoint. With tater tots and milk shakes, what's not to love? All in all I think it was a special day for Hadley. At bedtime she said "Mommy, thank you for my special birthday."

We celebrated together as a family on Saturday. She kept mentioning a "party" with her friends which made me feel bad since we really don't have any friends here yet. She told me "Mom, I'm going to have all my girls over for cake". I thought it was sweet that she referred to them as "her girls". I asked who they were and she named all her friends from Canada (Big Ella, Little Ella, Eva and Paisley). I told her we were just having a party with family this year but it would be really fun. We all headed to the zoo and aquarium for a special outing then home to have dinner, cake and presents.

She's completely obsessed with Doc McStuffins right now, a new character on Disney Jr. Of course, like most new crazes, all things DS related are completely sold out of stores and the prices are insanely inflated on ebay. None of the stores do Doc McStuffins cakes yet since it's so new, but I found a place out of Texas that made an edible sheet to put on top of a regular sheet cake and had it shipped. Yes, I'm nuts. I don't even normally like store bought cakes but the cake decorating supplies are in some storage warehouse somewhere and we're all so displaced, especially the kids, I just wanted her day to be special. Anyway, I managed to find a couple of items on ebay for only slightly inflated prices and she got the party she was dreaming of!

This is what your cake looks like when people request certain characters.

 

Tate's just happy if you let him watch the action.

Doc McStuffins and Lambie!

Now all the "aminals" are getting a check up.