12/31 Maile's Actual Birthday

Hansel woke up early that morning to go run out to the local market to a get Maile a cupcake for her birthday. He ended up getting a cute Tinkerbell cake. So we had cake that morning for breakfast. It was actually pretty good, except the frosting turned your lips blue.


Hansel and I had thought about taking Maile to a Pump It Up New Year's Eve party from 4-6p, but then found out it was $14/person (including adults). Usually, Pump It Up only charges for the kids. Before confirming the price, I had asked the Yaus if they wanted to join us. They wouldn't be able to, but they suggested a Noon Year's Eve event at the Hiller Aviation Museum.

So after breakfast we picked up Hannah and Al (Leilani had to work) and then headed over to the museum. Maile provided in-car entertainment that morning by "reading" a book to Hannah (she recognizes and has memorized a lot of the words). Maile brought the book along because one of the characters is named Hannah.

We got to the museum a little after it opened. The main parking lot was already full, and they were directing people to an adjacent motel lot. There were a lot of mini-vans and SUVs. We knew it was going to be a full house.

Besides the usual exhibits, they had bounce houses, live reptiles (e.g., tortoise, snakes, etc.), young women dressed as fairies, face painting, live entertainment, and a balloon drop. I wasn't sure if I wanted us to stay for the balloon drop because I thought it would ruin the novelty of the balloon drop we were going to have at Maile's birthday party. But Hansel thought it would enhance the anticipation.

One of the fairies had a shaggy dog puppet, which I think the kids thought was real. I thought it was real at first until I got closer. The girls got their face painted while Hansel took Beck around. They then watched a bird show. We had lunch there. I ate a hot dog. My first in probably a year. It was yummy. We then headed inside for the balloon drop. The bag was huge, but definitely not big enough to cover the number of people there. After the balloons dropped, Hansel was surprised that people weren't hitting the balloons around. All the kids were trying to grab them. Kids have a strange fascination for balloons, bubbles, and balls. I wonder what Freud's interpretation for that would be.

I'm not the most organized person in the world and with Christmas, getting ready for baby #3, planning Maile's birthday party, I hadn't bought her birthday gifts yet. I also still had to buy some stuff for the party. So I ended up going to five stores during the kids' naps. I did buy her birthday presents (whew), including a princess item upon Hansel's insistence. I'm trying to keep the princess gear to a reasonable amount, esp Disney princess, a lot of which is pretty gaudy. Have you seen that stuff?