Derek's 4th Birthday Adventure!

For Derek's 4th Birthday I decided that I would try to do something a little different.  I wasn't planning on holoding a family party I was just going to throw him a little friend party, well those plans all changed.  Derek got sick a week before his birthday with an ear infection that decided to drain and infect his lymph nodes.  When we took him into the doctor they told us that there was a chance that he might end up requiring surgery to drain it, if it didn't do it on its own.  They gave him a strong antibiotic and I didn't really think much about it, until he started having an allergic reaction to his antibiotic, (yes, he is allergic to Penicillin.)  So then all plans changed and well I think it turned out all for the better.  He was just fine and better by his birthday, but I was afraid if something happened it would break some little kids heart.

It started out by going and picking up his cousin Annistyn, these two have just so much fun together and they were so excited to go on our adventure.  We then headed to American Fork, to have lunch at McDonald's with Grandma Ann where they played in the play place and Derek had his favorite food of all time a cheeseburger.

Afterward lunch we headed to do the Museum of Natural History at Thanksgiving Point (or as the kids called it the Dinosaur Museum)  They were so good, and loved see all sorts of different things.

The kids were just shocked at how big this dinosaur foot was.

This exhibit was fake, but the kids didn't understand that and kept asking me why the fish weren't swimming.

We got to an exhibit where the kids got to set up there own dinosaur world with sand and water, and well they played here for easily 45 minutes, they just loved it, and were so sad when I told them that we had to move on.

They were almost just as excited when they got to go digging for bones.  They used there hands and paint brushes to uncover the buried bones.  Again, so excited.  Unfortunately a lot of these pictures are really blurry because I couldn't get the kids to hold still long enough to take good pictures.

We then headed to the Ice Cream Parlor.  They were so excited but then confronted me with the dreaded question, whats next.  I was worn out by then, but they even with no nap were ready to go.

 

So I decided to take them mini golfing, which quite possibly might be the funniest experience of the whole day.  Annistyn couldn't quite grasp the fact that if you didn't make it from the first hit, you didn't have to start over and Derek just wanted to hit it at the beginning, and then pick it up, place it about six inches from the cup and then just tap it in.  I was laughing so hard.  The golfing place was indoors and black lit, hence no pictures, but take my word for it, it was really fun.  Again, I was faced with the questions what's next on our adventure.  I was officially worn out, so I talked to the family and we decided that we would all meet at the mall for dinner.  While waiting at the mall, Papa saw this train that rides around and decided that we all needed to take a ride, it was really funny watching all us big adults pile into this funny little train, but the kids, especially Derek loved it.  

Oh, did I forget to mention, that Derek wanted to wear his Burger King Crown that he had gotten a couple of days earlier EVERYWHERE!  Annistyn had one too.

Eating his birthday treat at Red Robin.

After dinner we headed to Grandma and Papa Hatch's house to have Cake and open presents. 

Derek modeling his new Jazz sweatsuit and man does he love it. 

Derek got to pick out his candles, Mickey Mouse, he wanted a Chocolate Cake with M&M's on it, so that is what he got.  The M&M's were pink because that is all I could find right around Valentine's day.  

I felt so lucky that I was able to take the day off of work and spend it all day with Derek.  We had so much fun, the only thing that would have made it better is if Corey could have come with us.  We've decided that these birthday adventures are definitely the way to go, since they are both still talking about it today.  Probably a lot more memorable than party.