Elise's 4th Birthday

Ty took the Wednesday through Friday of spring break off work to hang out with us. Elise's birthday was Thursday so he was home for her birthday! We decided to take a little mini-vacation Thursday and Friday of spring break so I asked Elise what she wanted to do since it would fall on her birthday. She said she wanted to go to a hotel which left us with endless possibilities and an easy to please birthday girl! Even though Ty didn't have to go to work so I could have slept in and then ran, I got up early so I could be home before Elise woke up. I wanted to be there to wish her a happy birthday when she woke up! I made it home from my run around 6:45 and she slept until 7:15 so I even had time to shower before she got up. When she came out of her room I put a candle in a Peep (usually we use a marshmallow but Ty got birthday cake flavored Peeps this year which I thought was genius). We all sang her Happy Birthday and then she blew out her candles. She was so excited to say she was 4. We continued our tradition of hanging streamers in her doorway and she loved it! We packed her presents for her to open at the hotel that night but saved out one for that morning. I knew she'd want to play with it when she opened it and she wouldn't be able to at the hotel. It was spray paint sidewalk chalk. She was sweet enough to share with Carter and they had a blast with it! I watched them for a while and finished getting ready. Ty packed up the car so we'd be ready to go when they were finished playing. It worked out wonderfully! I took some pictures of Elise by her birthday banner and with her streamers. Then we pulled the streamers down because they'd set off our hallway motion alarm while we were gone in the past. Then we were off!

With the lights off, my phone couldn't get very good pictures.

Opening her spray paint sidewalk chalk.

The night before I asked Elise what she wanted to have as a special birthday breakfast and she picked doughnuts. I had a QuikTrip gift card from a student so we decided to stop off at QuikTrip to pick out doughnuts and fill up with gas. Elise picked a chocolate iced doughnut with chocolate milk and Carter picked a giant cinnamon roll with apple juice. Elise was so thrilled. She even asked me to take her picture. Later she asked to borrow my phone to take pictures and took some selfies while holding up 4 fingers. It was precious! The drive to Oklahoma City was short and sweet. Carter practiced his Spanish vocabulary and read me 2 of his books. Then I read some library books to the kids. They used their tablets for the last 30 minutes and then we were there! We went straight to the Science Museum which I was really looking forward to. It was such a beautiful day that I was wishing a little bit that we were going to the zoo instead so we could be outside. Parking was already pretty crazy at 9:45 and it looked like most the people parking in the Science Museum parking lot were actually going to the zoo. The Science Museum and zoo are right next door to each other. That made me glad we were going to the less busy and crowded attraction.

I was so excited about the Science Museum because our Children's Museum membership for the museum here would get us into the museum for free! I honestly couldn't believe it and was a bit skeptical that we would all get in totally free. I was prepared to pay for one of us adults but we all got in totally free! They even gave us a discount in the gift shop! It would have cost us $58 plus tax to get in otherwise! Elise's favorite exhibit was in the dyslexia area. There was a giant Scrabble board where you could spell things out. She pretended to be my teacher. It was so cute. She'd hold up a letter and say, "Put your hand up if this letter is in your name." We spelled out her name and Carter's name. She loved being the teacher and telling me what to do. She'd tell me which space to put the letter in. For the past few days Elise hadn't been napping. I figured we'd just let her skip her nap again. She was pretty tired because she was so excited for her birthday she had a hard time falling asleep the night before and was still awake at 9:30 when we started getting ready for bed. At one point Ty said it was Elise's birthday and she started pouting and wouldn't walk or look at anyone. It was silly but also a little cute. Around 2:00 she asked me if it was almost naptime because she was tired. I asked her if she wanted to take a nap and she was adamant that she didn't. By 3:00 she seemed exhausted and we could check into our hotel so we decided it was time to leave. After 5 hours at the museum we still hadn't seen everything! We will definitely need to go back sometime this summer since we can get in for free. The crazy thing is that you have to live at least 90 miles away from the museum to get in free with a different membership and we are 95 miles away so we just barely qualify!

Elise didn't want to pose for a picture with her outline and sign Ty drew for her.

After Ty did Elise's outline, she wanted to do his.

Elise's favorite exhibit was the giant Scrabble board.

Elise upset that Ty said it was her birthday.

Getting really tired!

Once we got to the hotel the birthday girl wanted to head straight down to go swimming. We chose the hotel based on the swimming pool and it didn't disappoint, the kids loved it! There was a beach walk-in and a little slide for kids. Carter was confident enough to swim without floaties and would actually jump off the side of the pool into the water, going under, he's always been a little scared to do that in the past. When they got tired and were ready for dinner we headed back to the room. Ty took the Easy Mac down to the lobby to heat it in the microwave while I gave the kids a quick bath. When Ty got back Elise opened her presents as they waited on the Easy Mac to cool. After they ate we rested for a bit and then headed out to find Bricktown Candy Co. for Elise to pick out some birthday treats.

We took the kids' tablets with us and they played on their tablets while Ty and I ate dinner at a cheese steak place. We've never done that before but we figured since they were tired and had already eaten and it was Elise's birthday, we'd do that as a special thing. We had to pay to park in the parking garage by the hotel so we didn't want to have to drive somewhere and pay to park again. We just walked and Elise did a great job, actually walking on her own. I was surprised because she was tired from swimming. After dinner we walked over to Bricktown Candy Co. where Elise and Carter picked out some treats. They had all kinds of gummy candy and Elise even got some gummy unicorns! When we got back to the hotel it was bedtime. Elise had a wonderful and busy day and was so excited to tell people she was a new number!

I made a list of what Elise told me she wanted for her birthday on my phone. I thought it was so cute I decided to take a screenshot and save it so I can remember.