Early Birthday

Last night we took the kids to the toy store to get ideas for their birthday.  Lance and I went earlier in the week, and thought we had some things they might like but were having a really hard time with Katie.  Tyler is pretty easy - dinosaurs, cars, art.  Katie is more difficult because she spends more time dancing and cheering and flipping and singing and drawing than actually playing with toys, but she loves the toy store and opening gifts so we wanted to get her something that she would be excited about (especially since we aren't really doing a big party like they wanted).  One thing we were specifically looking for is a doll that doesn't have a "hard face."  Those were Katie's words to describe all of her other dolls that she can't sleep with because of the plastic. Cabbage Patch dolls was what I thought was a brilliant idea from Lance, but alas they have gone to plastic faces too.  We decided to let them pick out one thing to get early so they could play with it all weekend since they won't have much time if they get things on their actual birthday, and Katie picked out one of the things we were considering and absolutely loves it.  She danced around (it attaches to her feet to dance with her) with it all night, slept with it, woke up first thing to bring "Bella" into bed with us, and she hasn't left her side since.  She chose a ballerina rag doll that has a soft face and is almost as big as her - plus it was the exact same price as Tyler's chosen early toy (all about fairness and luckily both under $15)!  Tyler has been pretty obsessed lately with his Switch and Go dinosaurs that he got for his birthday last year (they are kind of like Transformers and switch from a dinosaur to a car pretty easily).  When he saw those there was no other choice and he was so excited to have his new one"meet" the old one and he too has played with it all morning (and doesn't even want to go to the pool today because he can't take them because they can't get wet).  Birthday gifts are a lot more fun than Christmas to me because you don't have to keep secrets about who gave what! 

We managed to sneak a few gifts into the trunk last night while they weren't looking to give to them on Monday.  Tyler wants the full collection of the switch and go dinosaurs and really wants the red one (he knows what kind it is but I don't remember), and of course we chose the yellow one gift for his actual birthday.  Oh well, it will give us ideas for Christmas if he is still into them.  Also picked up a dinosaur mountain and new dinosaurs for him, a Monsters University night light and some matchbox cars.  For Katie we got cheerleader barbie, a barbie carrying case, a single doll stroller (number one choice for some reason because she doesn't like the double stroller) and a keyboard with a microphone even though she, as expected, can't stop talking about the guitar that we were debating between and no longer wants the keyboard. 

We are going to pick out their birthday cake this morning, and then we are going to go to the pool (too hot to do anything else).  When Lance gets home I may go exchange the keyboard, but I have a feeling that may backfire and once I do that the guitar will be second choice!  I think they will have fun with the surprise small party at Chuck E. Cheese and certainly have enough toys even without anything new so I am not too worried about it - I think they will have a good 5th birthday!  I seriously can't believe they are going to be 5 in just a couple of days!