Happy Birthday Carie

Today, Carie turns another year older, wiser, and more beautiful. On paper it is a "big one" but in reality she says it is just another day.

To celebrate her birthday we get to go to our school carnival. Doesn't that sound like fun!?!?!? While we've pretty much kept to the sidelines for this event there are still things to do. So far we are just running stuff up to school but I won't be surprised if we find ourselves engaged in something once we get there. As long as we can eat dinner together and get the kids to the games and activities they want to do, it is all good!

Because celebrating your birthday at a school carnival doesn't sound all that special to me... at least for an adult... the plan was to have our family celebration Saturday afternoon and an adult celebration Saturday evening. Then we would celebrate Spencer's birthday on Sunday, the actual day for him. Everyone thought that was a great plan.

Then yesterday afternoon we (the kids and I) decided to wrap Carie's presents. The plain brown Amazon boxes have been sitting on the fireplace for a good week now; it seemed time to pretty them up. The kids were involved in selecting her gifts. They were fully aware (at least at one time) what they were. They also typically do a great job of keeping it a surprise. But not this time. My luck had run out.

As I open one plain brown Amazon box (here was my biggest mistake) the kids take a look and Spencer belts out "Ohhhh A Wii Fit". Now, Carie is upstairs doing her thing. She was out of sight but totally not out of ear shot. She absolutely had to have heard him. As usual she did a great job of acting like she heard nothing and knew nothing.

But the thing is... I was pretty certain that Ellie had also blown it just the night before. We were eating dinner and a conversation about nutrition and exercise came up. It really was just a natural conversation (the kids seem to talk about this a lot) that innocently lead towards a conversation about their personal experience with Wii Fit at a friend’s house. I think it would have all be fine if the conversation ended there. But then Ellie asks Carie something about wanting a Wii Fit. Now, Carie had never really declared that she would want one. But she's talked about it and I thought it would be something she would enjoy and it goes along with her smaller gift that she did request.

So I was already feeling like the surprise had been blown on Wednesday night and by Thursday afternoon it was definitely blown. We continue wrapping and I'm thinking about alternate plans. I also decide that the other plain brown Amazon box was being wrapped as is.

Carie had mentioned that after dinner she would like to take the girls over to the consignment sale to try on some clothes. She and Spencer had been there the day before and scored on some great finds. But she felt there may be more options if she had the girls with her to check on sizing. So I convinced the girls of a new plan... and they were totally on board!

The new plan... Carie and the girls would go to the consignment sale. The girls would keep Mommy busy by trying on clothes! Then while they were gone Spencer and I would go get flowers and a birthday dessert. Then when we all got home we would celebrate Mommy's birthday that night... instead of Saturday. They were so stoked with the new plan that they didn't even care that they had to try on clothes!

Mommy was sure surprised! She loved the flowers. She opened her gifts and we had a small amount of the dessert with plans to enjoy the rest of it on Saturday.

The funny thing was that Spencer insisted that Mommy open the smaller package first. He practically begged her to choose the small one... because he didn't know what was in it! He already knew what the big box was but it was killing him to not know what was in the small box.

Now... on to the carnival tonight, soccer and swim lessons tomorrow followed by a date night for us. Then we’ll celebrate Spencer's birthday with a special trip to the Pizza Machine on Sunday.