Celebration Time!

On Friday we celebrated Oliver's third birthday in the city where he was born - Harrisburg. Another bonus for celebrating there is it's about half way between our home and my parents home in Maryland, which makes their drive more reasonable. We had donuts for breakfast (with a birthday candle) and then Oliver opened four presents - one from Aunt Wendy (lion costume), one from Aunt Yvonne (fingerpaint soap and a dvd), and two from us (a set of Mickey Mouse figurines and three Color Wonder pads). Then we drove to Harrisburg and met my friend, Joyce, and her daughter Kristin at McDonald's for a second breakfast (which was also our lunch for the day). After that we met my parents and Paul's parents at the State Museum. The kids especially enjoyed the "Curiosity Connection" room which was geared for children ages 1-5. We also participated in a program about peregrine falcons. It usually costs between $5-7 per person (ages 1+) to visit the museum, but they have some days where it is free from 11:00-1:30, and we took advantage of that special. All we had to pay was parking.

After spending about 3 hours at the museum, we drove to Chuck E Cheese. The last time we were there was April 2012 when Ian was in the feeding program at Hershey Medical and Oliver was in my womb. Since we hadn't spent much on his birthday presents, we splurged on his birthday celebration. We got a package that included 4 drinks, 2 pizzas, and 120 tokens to be used on the games and rides. My dad also got the kids 100 tokens. I enjoyed playing Skee-ball a few times. The place was NOT crowded at all, which was greatly appreciated. Paul was dreading the experience, but he also thought it went very well. I brought birthday hats, plates, napkins, and a tablecloth. Paul's parents brought the birthday cake that Aunt Millie had made. We had asked for the cake to be half chocolate and half vanilla since some people strongly prefer one over the other (Paul and his dad don't like chocolate cake). Oliver blew out the candle on his cake a couple of times, and then he opened his presents from Great Gram and his grandparents. He got a puzzle, a new pair of sneakers, some clothes, a dvd player for the van (ours broke a few weeks ago), a Pete the Cat puppet, Pete the Cat books, two dvds, a play-doh set, and a chef costume. The kids enjoyed the rides and games and earned about 960 tickets. They used the tickets to buy tootsie rolls, 2 slinkies, 2 rockets, a bracelet, a little plastic dinosaur, etc. I let each child spend about 330 tickets.

The kids left in our van with Paul's parents to go back to their house. Paul and I went back to our house in their car. We forgot to take our garage door opener out of the van, and I had given my whole key ring to Paul's dad. Thankfully I had used Paul's set of keys on Thursday night and had accidentally left it in my purse. This was a big blessing because we were able to use the front door key from his key ring to get into the house. Whew. Our 14th anniversary is on Tuesday, and we decided to celebrate it this weekend. We planned it too last minute to be able to use anything through our time share so we opted just to stay at home. We will be reuniting with the kids at church this morning. On our way home on Friday night we stopped at a mall and did a little shopping for the kids. Saturday morning we walked for about 3 miles and then Paul made us omelettes for breakfast. We went shopping (at a different mall) on Saturday afternoon, had dinner at TGIF, and then walked 4 miles last night. Oliver and Ian have been waking us up lately during the night so we just enjoyed being able to sleep through the night without interruptions and also that we could sleep in until 7:30, which is unheard of with the kids.

My first thought had been to spend the day at Ricketts Glen State Park, as we've never been there before and I've seen friends post pretty pictures from hiking there, but Paul didn't think he was in shape for that right now. The first 6 1/2 years we were parents we never had an overnight date, and now Paul's parents have graciously given us a total of four kid free nights this year (two nights this past January for Paul's birthday and two nights just now for our anniversary). It was Paul's idea, and it was a good one. I was just going to get a babysitter so we could go out for dinner on Tuesday night. I am sure the kids have had a great time with Paul's parents! They went to Lowe's yesterday morning to build Hulk's tank. We are very, very thankful that Paul's parents were willing to watch the kids so we could have a little time for just the two of us.