Happy Birthday to Anne this last Monday!! She turned 4--one of my particular favorites in age. She wanted a pony cupcake cake (like Emily had one year), and we invited our cousins over to share FHE and opening presents. She got a new play dress and Dora bath doll (well-used w/ all of her bathing!), and dollhouse doll courtesy of grandmas and grandpas. We got her Candy Land and a little sweater (Emily was appalled that we only spent $10 on her!), and cousins brought a great hairbow/headband kit, that perfectly matched her new outfit!!! (and they didn't even know!!).
I had a Women's Conference planning meeting that afternoon, so she was thrilled to be able to play @ Braxton's without me for a while, we had cocoa puffs for her birthday cereal, and pizza for supper, so a fun time! I also found some free Circus tickets at the pizza place, that I thought we could use as a little family celebration. We scheduled it for Saturday afternoon, and Anne read her clown book all week, and was SO excited. We packed up, drove to the Ogden Golden Spike Arena, ready for what I thought would be a pretty low-key circus (since they were giving out free tickets everywhere!), and then stood in line for half an hour to buy the one adult ticket we needed. In a golden parenting moment though, we saw a sign as we approached the box office that said "Only ONE free ticket per paid adult ticket purchase" Even w/ Lucy being free, we would now be out over $50, instead of having to buy the one ticket that I'd planned. As we looked again at our "free" tickets, they did put that in fine print (as a wife of an attorney, you'd think I'd know to check these things!), so we tried coaxing the children to a dollar movie, or ice cream cone. At first it seemed appealing, but the trouble is, compared to a free family activity, everything gets pretty spendy x8. I maybe would've considered pushing for the circus, even at that price (after all, we did only spend $10 on her gifts!), but we'd already missed the first half hour, and if we're going to pay so much, we should at least get the full show! Even Brian said he'd never been to the circus before, and when Anne would start to cry he'd say, "It's okay Anne, I'm 42, and I still haven't seen the circus either!--Kids, you can say you've been TO the circus--you just didn't go in!" Anne was finally consoled at the idea of ice cream and the park (I know, it IS January, but at least it was a SUNNY 42 degrees!), so we bombarded a Baskin Robbins, then went to a park w/ a frozen pond to slide around on (though Anne still preferred the playground). It was so strange to have the pond so frozen (lots of holes frozen over from ice fishing), since all of our little snow amounts have mostly melted away! We then rented the Smurfs movie, and came home to cheese toast, bean and bacon soup, caramel corn, and rice crispy treats. Poor Anne!! Some birthday celebration! As the kids wondered if Dad really would get them all ice cream, he'd say, "Sure we'll do something!--I may be cruel, but I'm not that cruel." :) As everyone posed for the pond pictures, I'd call out, say, "Better than the Circus!"
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