Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Happy Birthday Carter!


Carter was a lucky boy this year because we stretched out his birthday celebrations basically over the whole month of August.  During the first week of August, when our out of town guests were here, we had a celebration for “Everyone” at our house (everyone who had a birthday in August which included: Gigi, Carter, Elsa, Aunt Nancy, and Abby). That same week Grandma and Grandpa Jernstadt also threw Carter and Elsa a “Toy Story” party, complete with Toy Story decorations, cake, and other accessories.


Two weekends later Dave, Carter, Mia, Grandpa Jernstadt, and I headed to Michigan Adventure for Carter’s first trip to an amusement park. He got a little taste of rides when we took him to the Air Zoo in July (and he loved them) so we had a feeling this would be a really fun day for him. It did not disappoint!


Carter was able to ride on many of the rides (36 inches was the minimum height for most of the kid rides, which he beat by about an inch) including: a mini roller-coaster, some airplanes and cars, a crazy spinning bucket, a swinging pirate ship, a log run, bumper cars, and more.


















Even Mia was able to ride on a few rides, including one without a parent (Carter was next to her). Watching Carter and Mia walk over and get on their own ride made me more than a little nervous, but the seat belts were locked and it was barely off the ground.
 






We also hit the water park portion and the kids had a blast playing in the water. Carter and Dave went in the “wave pool” which Carter learned to love after a while. We also went in a smaller kiddie pool area with fountains and small water slides. Mia had fun splashing in the fountains and Carter actually braved one of the water slides by himself!






We hope to make an amusement park trip at least once a summer since the kids seem to love it (and so do Dave and I)! I definitely foresee Cedar Point or Great America in the future when the kids are older and taller.

After the day at Michigan Adventure we had pizza and presents with Dave’s family. Carter told us he did not want a cake this year, but brownies instead. Dave certainly didn’t want to do just any old brownies (Dave’s elaborate birthday cake repertoire includes a 3-D dinosaur, Lighting McQueen, and a bathtub) so he got creative and turned the brownies into a scene from Carter’s recent favorite cartoon, Sponge Bob Square Pants.







To round out the month of celebrating, I took the kids to Grand Haven to swim in Grandpa and Grandma Baldwin’s pool on Carter’s actual birthday. It was a gorgeous day and we had fun swimming and playing.

Whew, who knew turning 4 was so tiring!

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