Larry's Birthday

Larry is officially an old man now! Not because he turned 35, but because when I turned 35 he kept calling me an old lady and now that he's my age I get to throw it back at him haha. No, 35 is a great age! We both agreed we'd be done having kids by 35 (we said we'd have as many as we could handle, but 35 is our stopping point for our goal of having a great time at 40 and we're a little ahead of the game on that one haha).

I wanted to make sure his birthday this year was great! Something to make up for his Father's Day that didn't go as well. I told him he gets to decide, whatever he wants. All he could tell me ahead of time was that he wanted to go to Leatherby's for dinner (his favorite tradition) and go to Nickel City at some point. So we knew going into the weekend that it would be easiest to go to Nickel City first and head to Leatherby's for dinner afterwards. I'm not a huge fan of going to the nickel arcades with the kids, but mostly because I have to watch them so closely I don't get to play much so it's not as much fun, but I still enjoy him having fun so it's worth it. 

Since his birthday was on a Saturday and that's his day I let him sleep in, I decided to let him sleep in as long as he wanted. He got to "party" last night so we ended up waking him up around 9:30 because he wanted to see this bike parade our neighborhood was doing at 10 so that was his time limit for sleeping haha. We went outside our house (he said he saw they rode right past us) right at 10 and waited...and waited....and waited. Finally after 15 minutes I thought "surely, they would've started by now?" so I asked him about it and decided to check the map on our neighborhood page...turns out they were going along the train BEHIND the houses in front of us. So we rushed over to the basketball courts (where the finish line was) and saw it was all just ending as we showed up. Luckily, they had a cooler full of popsicles for the kids so they got to at least have a treat. It was a bit of a bummer, but we did get to see the bikes...just not moving as much haha.

After that I asked Larry what he wanted to do since we had some time before lunch. He said he just wanted to hang out at the house. I know that's pretty typical so I wasn't surprised, so a lazy morning is what he got. The kids wanted to be outside so he and I just sat on the grass in the little bit of shade our trees gave us and let the kids have fun.

For lunch, I made the kids some lunch and then went and grabbed myself something (Larry said he wasn't hungry still so he didn't want anything, but I haven't been able to get myself lunch in so long that I wasn't going to miss the opportunity). After lunch, I put Pierce and Lucy down for a nap and entertained the older girls while Larry laid down. We made paper bag monsters, a soccer field, we read one of the highlight magazines from our huge stack in the front room, set Cara's "grow a unicorn" up in water to watch, and then I let them play while I made the grocery list (it felt very productive haha).

After nap time, we got everyone all ready and headed to Nickel City. We ended up having more fun than we have the past few times we've come (mostly because the last few times I've either been pretty pregnant or we have a new baby that doesn't walk that I need to hold the entire time). I told Larry to go play his games and I'll entertain the kids. It's easy when they mostly love this little carousel that's at the front. I let them ride that a few times and then I let them each pick a game to play and we'd go do that for a while. 

After a little bit, we found Larry playing a shooting dinosaur game and Cara wanted to play that with him so I left her with him and took the other three to play other games. Then we kind of stuck with dad after a few games. Around 4:30 I asked him when we should head to dinner and he said in about 20 minutes so we played a bit more and then I had him play his DDR game (that he usually plays at least once when we're there). About 4:45 we were done, we turned in the tickets (well, he did, while I did the carousel ride a couple more times for Pierce since he didn't really get to play anything and he just smiled and smiled so much on that thing haha), and we headed over to dinner.

Luckily, there wasn't much of a wait at Leatherby's so we were able to get right in. It was even more lucky because the kids all had to go to the bathroom right as we sat down so I was able to take them and then change Lucy and Pierce's diapers as well. Dinner was really good and we got lots of good ice creams as well (Larry, of course, got his bubble gum, I tried Rocky Road, which okay, the girls got play dough and cotton candy). After that we went home, got the kids to bed, and now we're getting ready for our movie night. I'm letting him choose since it's his birthday and all. 

I asked him how his birthday was and he said it wasn't bad. I'm sure it was a little better than Father's Day, but still feel we could do more for his birthday. It felt very boring, but at least he got a nap, some game time, and some yummy ice cream so it's not all bad, right?

Anyways, happy birthday to the best husband and father we could ask for. To the guy who is always going along with my plans without complaining so he deserved a day to make the plans and have us all go along with it. I hope you know how much we love and appreciate all you do for us on a daily basis (he's one of the only dad's I know who is as involved with his kids as much as he is and he's a MUCH better dad than the ones we got growing up so I'm very very very proud of him for being happy to be with his kids so much). Welcome to 35, may the next 35 years be just as great as the last few have been! LOVE YOU BABE!!