Carli's Birthday Family Style

This is the first time on Carli's birthday that we did not celebrate with a party.  Keith and I decided that we wanted to make Carli's birthday a celebration of who she is, and what an awesome girls she is instead of focusing on things.  We wanted to spend the day together as a family and celebrate Carli. 

On the Thursday following Carli's birthday, Keith took off work.  We ate a really light breakfast and loaded up in the car and headed out for a quick chiropractor appt.  We go every other Thursday, so we moved our appt up to the beginning of the day so we could spend the rest of the day playing!  After excitedly telling Dr. Wilson that today was her birthday surprise day, but having no clue what we were doing we went to the Diner for a late breakfast of yummy pancakes, omelets and eggs benedict.  It was super yummy!

There is no denying that Carli belongs to Keith!

 



 

 Then we headed to the Silverleaf Waterpark in Flint.  We had never been but the girls LOVED the Great Wolf Lodge Waterpark, so we thought for a few hours this one might just work out well too!  The girls were super excited when we got there.  It opened at noon and we arrived at 11:59 and yes, they made us wait to go in.  :)

Once inside, we got changed into our swimsuits and walked into the waterpark and the big bucket of water dumped.  Carli crawled into my arms and whimpered, "I want to go home!!"  Oh boy.  Looks like our surprise was a good one!  ha!  She actually really enjoyed the lazy river the whole 3 hrs we were there.  Seriously we had to pull her out.  The bad thing about Silverleaf is that there was lots to play on but the big bucket of water dumped all over the playscape for the kids so if the kid was scared of the bucket, they simply  didn't play!  At the Great Wolfe Lodge, there was a place for the toddlers to play to their hearts content without the worry of water randomly dumping on them.  Mind you, this isn't just a small bucket.  The force would knock a kid Carli's size over!  So we really couldn't blame her fear.  We were also bummed that they did not allow the water tubes in the wave pool...whats the point of a wave pool if you can't float on a tube?!

But they did have a lazy river and Carli LOVED it.  So Keith and I took turns doing a few of the bigger slides and taking Ava over to do a few of the slides she was tall enough to do.  Ava would have done them all if she had been tall enough!

There was one slide that the bucket didn't touch and Carli would go down it reluctantly.  It was her celebration so we tried not to get frustrated with her lack of want to be brave and do the other slides.

 We left the park around 2:30.  We had promised the girls ice cream, but they were some serious walking zombies.  Ava was so determined to stay awake for ice cream that she seriously propped her eyes open!  So we went and got ice cream at Braums.  They LOVED it as always.

 They both fell asleep in the car on the way home.  Between the excitement of doing new things, the 3 hrs play in the water, no amount of sugar in ice cream could keep them awake!

We all took an hour nap when we got home and it was awesome!  :)  Ava had her first soccer practice that afternoon.  I was going to take Carli to get a pedicure but Ava wanted to go to.  So we all went to practice.  After practice Carli was dying of hunger and opted for Chick-fil-a over a pedicure.  Then it was off to Walmart to buy Ava some soccer shorts for her first game and let Ava pick out a birthday gift to give Carli. 

Ava decided to get Carli a Hello Kitty ball since Carli's pink ball got kicked over the fence.  The older neighbors didn't ever throw it back.  I am sure it is b/c they didn't know which of the five yards they should return it to.  The girls tried leaving a sign for the neighbors on the back fence but between the rain and the neighbors not being home that didn't work.  Ava got Carli a new one...and yes, we let her get one too.  We were only suppose to be getting the balls but we ended up coming home with two fairy princess costumes as well.  Hey - it's her birthday celebration!  :) 

 We all had a wonderful day and enjoyed getting to spend it together as a family.