We had a busy and exciting weekend that started Friday night with Katie Belle’s 4th birthday party. The theme was Tinkerbell—that is the craze among little girls these days! It was a great time and the kids ate dinner, then had birthday cake, then helped Katie open her presents, then made a craft, got candy from the piñata, and then played duck-duck-goose.
All the kids were invited to stay overnight for a sleepover but only Riley and Jacob ended up staying. Addi was going to stay—we had her bag packed and even though momma wanted her to come home, I knew that she would have a blast so I was on board for her to stay for the sleepover! After everyone was in their PJs, the birthday girl wanted to watch Shrek. Craig and I were getting ready to leave to go home. As far as I knew Addi had never seen Shrek. Well, come to find out, Addi is TERRIFIED of Shrek—I guess because he’s a big, green, ugly monster!! When she is scared of something, she puts her hands over her ears and cries and that’s exactly what she did. That’s all it took. She wanted to come home with us. Lyndi tried to get Katie to watch something different so that Addi would stay but then Katie cried because she wanted to watch Shrek. I told Lyndi that it was Katie’s birthday so she could watch whatever she wanted and I took my sweet, chicken-little baby girl home with me! Seems like she is scared of lots of things these days, but I think it is probably just a phase she is going through. We have a neighbor whose dogs bark CONSTANTLY—it’s so annoying—but it’s never scared her before. Lately, when the dogs are barking, she covers her ears and will tell me, “those dogs scare me.”
Saturday morning, Lyndi picked me and Addi up and we headed to Cincinnati. Ann and her kids were in her van and we followed them. 3 adults and 5 children ages 4 and under. We were headed to the outlets to do some major shopping (so we thought)… The guys were all coming up later that afternoon after Jason and Randy got off work. Craig decided he’d rather wait on the other guys and gave up the opportunity to shop with the ladies and kids (shocking). Austin had play practice and then had to work on Sunday so he didn’t come at all. He stayed with Craig’s parents.
So we got to the outlets at around noon and you would have thought they were giving stuff away. IT. WAS. PACKED. Trying to maneuver strollers through jam-packed stores while little hands reached out and grabbed everything within reaching distance was a “challenge.” Needless to say, we made it in and out of about 4 stores—all children’s stores, of course. We did get some good buys but my sanity was becoming questionable.
We headed to the hotel in time to catch most of the UK game and just rest a little. The kids all needed naps but that didn’t happen! Once the guys arrived, we decided to go and grab dinner. The unanimous decision was O’Charley’s. The wait at O’Charley’s for 6 adults and 5 children was going to be an hour and a half… NOT! Craig and I went to Steak and Shake; Lyndi and Randy to Golden Corral; and Ann and Jason to Chilis!! So much for having dinner together, right?
We went back to the hotel to get ready for bed. We had a big day tomorrow at the water park across the street, Coco Key.
The hotel was very nice but there was a very large group staying there that occupied probably 2/3 of the hotel. This group was not quiet. To make a long story short, this group was still awake at 3AM and still not being very quiet. We made several calls to the front desk. Enough said.
Sunday morning, we went to IHOP to have breakfast and with our eyes half-open, headed to the water park. This was DEFINITELY the highlight of our weekend. The kids had a blast!! We stayed there for 5 hours and made sure that the kids were good and worn out! Addi was asleep before we could get to the truck and slept the whole way home. I slept a lot of the way too!
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| Heading to the car.... WIPED OUT! |
It was a great weekend!
