Stephen's 6th Birthday: Day 1

Stephen turned 6 years old today!  He's on the "big boy side of 5" and Daddy and I are trying to get used to it. :)

We planned a pretty fun weekend, so let's get started!

First we had to clean the house spick and span because the Spencer's were holding an open house from noon to 3pm.  I did keep the birthday window decorations up, mainly because it was pretty sparse and I didn't want to have to go to the trouble of putting them back up when we got home.  Stephen's first comment after seeing them, "Mom, I love the decorations you put up!  When are you putting up all the other decorations?" well . . . that's it, actually.  We may have to make a little stop at the dollar store for some streamers or something.

After everything was clean we were off on our "Birthday Excursion!" 

Stop #1: Mail Aunt Shellee's letter.  This letter cracks me up.  Lincoln just announced one day that for school he wanted to write to Aunt Shellee.  What did he write?  Simply, "I love you.  You are a great runner." When Stephen heard what Lincoln had written, he replied, "Aunt Shellee is a fast runner, that's true." I didn't know that the boys knew about Shellee's running abilities :)

 Stop #2: The Library.  We didn't go in, we just dropped off books :)  We did it partly to build anticipation for . . .

Stop #3: Hogle Zoo!

Stephen was soooo excited he almost wet his pants when he finally figured out where we were.  He kept saying, "this is the best birthday ever!"  We got in for $17 bucks since we have a year membership at the Phoenix Zoo which entitles us to a nice discount.

 The first place we went was the Monkey exhibit.  Alexander was rather shocked at first and stared wide-eyed at the orangutans.  Then he wanted down so he could get as close as he could to the monkeys.   Then it was off to see the elephants.

They had 2 adults out as well as a baby who was super cute.

 Lincoln was totally into the elephant skull. He studied it for quite some time.

 Stephen joined Lincoln and they "discussed" just where the trunk would come out.

The giraffes were nice and close.  The boys felt like they were going to bend down and lick them.  They have a second level for viewing which is cool because you're right next to their heads.  But when asked about it later, all Stephen could talk about were the tall, skinny doors to let the giraffes outside.

 You can't see it that well, but that's a tiger laying in the snow.  He just kept laying there doing nothing so Babycakes, Stephen and I just walked on.  After we left, Daddy and Lincoln saw him yawn really wide and said it was very exciting!

 Alexander missed his nap so he was just a tad on the cranky side.  At this point he was done checking out the non-moving animals and decided to walk on in hopes that we'd catch up with him.

It's been so cold for weeks but today was a whopping 44 degrees!  After walking around for a while, we actually got hot in our coats so the boys (including daddy) started stripping off. Poor daddy was left carrying a lot of coats.

Our favorite thing was the brand new Rocky Shores exhibit which houses the seals, otters, polar bears and black bears.  It was pretty fantastic.  We felt a little like we were at Sea World.

 That's not us, but it shows how cool the seal tank is.  You can view the animals outside or inside and both above or below the water. 

 

The only thing missing were the penguins.  That was sad and strange since it seems this habitat would be perfect for them.  Oh well.  We enjoyed the other animals just the same :)

 The boys loved watching all the animals but the otters were my favorite.  

I mean how cute is this little guy?

Look what Stephen stumbled upon:

Is this the original lion head drinking fountain?  If so, than it is really old!  Stephen ran over to it and yelled, "look mom, the lion is eating my head!" So is he the 5,000,000,000th kid to do that?

As we started to leave the zoo the boys spotted the merry-go-round and we couldn't resist.  So we all climbed on for a whirl.

Stephen knew exactly which animal he wanted to ride: The Praying Mantis!  So he ran a few rows behind the rest of us. 

Babycakes rode a monkey but he had animal envy for the whole ride.  He would have been happy if we just carried him around and let him sit on every animal. 

Right before it started the anticipation of the whole thing got to Lincoln and he burst into tears and said he was scared.  Daddy calmed him down and in about 5 seconds after it started he was having a blast.

Stop #4  After all that walking we were tired and a little hungry.  Since we knew we'd have to make our way over to the west side of town, we decided to make a little pit stop for a treat at our favorite ice-cream shop: They really do have the best ice-cream :)

We even splurged and got 2 cups of ice-cream to split between the 5 of us. It's a good thing we did too because Costco gypped us and didn't fill the cups up all the way.  Luckily the boys didn't notice.

Since the Dollar Store was near by we decided to make a quick Stop #5 so I could grab the begged for party hats and a roll of crepe paper to finish decorating.  While I was there I picked up a surprize balloon.  Stephen was so excited.  He said, "mom, how did you know this is what I wanted?  How did you know that I wanted a star and that I loved blue and that I wanted them mixed together?!" Just lucky I guess :)

Then it was on to Stop #6: Taco Bell.  We even made the boys dreams come true and we actually went inside!  Stephen wanted to bring his balloon inside because he knew he'd miss it too much if we left it in the car.

Stephen is waving here but when I showed him the picture he was worried we'd all think he was turning 5 years old, so we had to take another one.

As much as Stephen loves Taco Bell, Lincoln loves it more.  He was so excited!

After we'd finished all our burritos and cleaned up Alexander's messes, it was time to head to West Valley for Stop #7: Jenna Jeppson's Wedding Reception.

Jenna babysat the boys once when we were here before.  But the real reason they all wanted to go was that Leah (Jenna's sister) would be there.  They adore Leah.  So we got there and while we talked, the boys ran around the cultural hall like wild children.  Fun times.  The biggest success of the evening was that with all the distractions, I was still able to keep Alexander from grabbing the fish out of the fishbowl centerpieces.  Yeah!

We got home so late that it was time to go to bed.  Stephen was ok that we didn't get to the birthday cake since we ate wedding cake at the reception, but he was heartbroken that he didn't get to open any presents.  So we let him open just one - his Animal Encyclopedia!

He wouldn't go to bed he was having too much fun learning about animals all night.  Little does he know what awaits him tomorrow!