Tyler's 3rd Birthday and a New Car

Thank you, thank you, for the ultimate mom award! It was Tyler's birthday yesterday and once again, I've outdone myself. No theme party or homemade cake is good enough for my boy. No . . . we had store bought, all the way. Let me slow down and give you the magnificent details of Tyler's raging Birthday party.

We've decided to only do party's on the even birthdays, so Ty got a family party this year. We spent a quiet morning together, cleaning the house, and then met Pete to look at buying a new car. Unfortunately, that process took to long, so we had to leave mid-negotations, and pick up Maddy from school to get her to dance on time, then drop Jake off at football. We headed back to the dealership, where I dropped Pete off, and took Mitch and Tyler to buy presents for Ty's birthday. As we hit the toy aisles of Walmart, Mitchell became distraught that the surprise of opening gifts would be ruined, since Tyler could see what we were getting him. So we headed to the towel aisle, picked up a few towels (I needed new ones anyway), and headed back to the toy's. I gave Mitch a towel, let him choose a toy, wrap it in the towel, and hide it in the grocery cart. We did this for a few more gifts--pretty good adapting if I do say so myself. Pete walked to the Walmart from the dealership, unhappy with the price, and took Ty to the car while Mitch and I paid for the gifts. Then I dropped Pete, Mitch and Tyler at Chuck-E-Cheese, so I could run home, wrap the gifts (which ended up in gift bags), grab the cake (store bought) and ice cream, and pick up Madeline and Jake from their respective practices. While we were on our way back to Chuck-E-Cheese, Pete called and said it was a totally lame place (only a few games were working) and that we should go somewhere else. We decided to hit Nickel Mania, except it was 8pm by now, they didn't serve food, but they did have some party tables in the back. We ordered Domino's pizza to be delivered to the arcade, and began spending nickels like crazy. The pizza came, when we realized that we didn't have drinks, paper goods or utensils, so once again we improvised. Luckily, the arcade had a pop vending machine, and we found 2 spoons and 3 plastic knives in the mini-van. We ate pizza, Tyler with a disguise on that he'd won at Chuck-e-Cheese and let the kids play games. Meantime, the car dealership had called and said they could come down to the price we wanted, but we had to get back to the dealership by 9pm. By now, it was 8:45pm, late for a school night, and we had to book it to get all of our kids and stuff in car and back to the dealership in time.

The good news was that we got a new car and the kids had a good time. The bad news was that it was too late to eat cake and ice cream, so this morning the party continued for breakfast! Not healthy, I know, but sometimes we have to find compromises. So I send my kids off to school all sugared up, Pete drove his sweet new car to work, and Tyler and I have another day to ourselves to do whatever we like! All in all, not a bad birthday for Ty! I may not get the Martha Stewart award, but I do know how to improvise!

Finally, a note of farewell to the mini-van! We had lots of good memories and long, cross country drives to and from Ann Arbor to Salt Lake in that car. We also drove to San Antonio Texas and back to Michigan, several trips to southern Utah, and lots of short trips around town to and from my kids various activities. It was a good car that served us well, although, I'll admit I'm happy to be moving on!