Larry's Birthday

I really feel like I did pretty well with Larry's birthday this year. Granted, I asked what he wanted, but I still found a way to make it fun!

I realized last minute that I didn't wrap his gifts so I had to wrap them the morning of his real birthday. I then realized I should've gotten his favorite snacks and done his version of a "birthday table" (he did get a ton of snacks for Father's Day so I wasn't sure he'd want so many more), but since I didn't I decided to grab snacks and drinks from our pantry that I know he likes and put those with the happy birthday banner and his presents on his desk (I knew he'd see that before the table haha).

I asked him if he wanted to have a special breakfast, but he said no, so we didn't do that. We did do our "what we love about the birthday person" thing (one of my favorite things to do) and dinner at Leatherby's, of course. 

For his celebration, he decided he wanted to go up to Malad for lottery tickets. I get bored there so easily since it's SO tiny, but wanted to find a way to make it more fun/special for us. They do have a playground/splash pad area that we figured we could do a picnic and bring some food and outside toys for the kids to play with. I knew they also had an ice cream place up there so we could get some while we were up there as well.

The morning of I was able to bring the kids to Home Depot early enough to do their kids workshop (which I did all by myself with all 4 kids) and that let Larry sleep in a bit. Then we got home, packed up, and headed out.

So I'm not sure if the city actually got cleaner and looked so much better than usual or having a better attitude made it better, but we ended up having a lot of fun! I was able to bring a couple bikes and scooters with us, we let the kids come up in their swim suits (and bring an extra pair of clothes), we stopped off at Subway to grab some food (but we also brought some fruit and snacks with us). When we got to the park it was noon so we ate at a shadowed picnic table and then covered everyone in sunscreen. 

The kids called this "Mommy mountain"
Because of the M

We let the kids play at the splash pad, but of course they also wanted to play on the stage they had decorated for the 4th as well (singing lots of songs and dancing around, not to mention playing with all the balloons). I brought out the bikes and the girls rode around the paved trail they have. We played a little longer and then stopped at this other ice cream stop I saw on the way to the park (a cute little trailer with a cute sandbox and photo ops all around). 

They had some fun flavors, but the kids ended up picking the best ones (cotton candy, bubble gum, and play doh). We let the kids enjoy their treat and then cleaned them off and headed back home.

I swear I remember the trip taking a lot longer, but we were able to get up there, have our fun for a few hours, and head back home in time for dinner. I was able to watch the kids at the park while Larry went to go get his tickets. He won some money (but not as much as he spent), so that's nice, at least. It ended up being so much fun and I'm glad we were able to go up and give him his birthday celebration that he wanted and I didn't feel stressed, annoyed, or anxious one little bit! Yay for being in this phase of life (I even told him I think I could handle doing a nickel arcade next year! haha).