It's a Chuck E Cheese Party!

Today is Morgan's Birthday! In order to celebrate the monumental fourth birthday we decided to take her to Chuck E Cheese. Now there is a little back story to this big trip.

For the last year she has been asking to go to Chuck E Cheese, and up until now Greg and I have dodged the question. She also has been asking "Is it my birthday?" It didn't take too long for her to put the two ideas together and ask if she could have a Chuck E Cheese party for her birthday. Greg and I still resisted for awhile and we told her we would have a party at home and invite her friends over. The plan was to let her invites some friends over, cook out, swim in the kid pool etc. Well with switching her school she lost a lot of her friends that she would have invited, and when we started calling all of our friends who have kids they were all busy. So we didn't want her to not have a party- so we decided to take the plunge and visit Chuck E Cheese.

We invited our friends who have a little boy named Miles and they were brave enough to come along with us. I did some research and decided to reserve an official party- mainly because I wanted her to feel special on her big day! And boy did she get some royal treatment.

We kept the visit a surprise for two reasons. 1. I didn't really want to hear her ask "Are we going to Chuck E Cheese today?" a million times and 2. I wanted to see the look on her face when she figured out where we were. So we finally broke down in the car on they way to the party. She wasn't too sure what we were talking about, but this is how she looked when we got there.

And Elizabeth was pretty excited too.

Since I reserved an official party for her we got all sorts of special stuff. We had a reserved table with a tables cloth, fun plates and cups. And an enormous star balloon that had Morgan's name on it. We got there and played for 45 minutes before lunch and "the show". All the kids got pizza and lemonade which seemed to be a big hit.

This picture shows the whole gang: Miles, his sister Amelia, Morgan and Elizabeth!

Like I said, the pizza was a big hit. Once everyone had lunch the show started. There was a giant screen that counted down Chuckie's arrival. Once I told Morgan what is was doing she got pretty excited. The show started with Chuckie coming out, shaking hands and moving incredibly excited kids out of his way. He made his way up to the front by the stage. Then Chuckie and the table servers started the birthday program. They made a huge deal about the Birthday Stars (which include anyone paying for an actual party)! WE cheered, sang, clapped etc. They even went table by table and yelled out that so and so was celebrating his whatever birthday. So Morgan was really excited when they got to her! "And this is Morgan who is celebrating her 4th birthday today- give her a hand!"

Since she was a birthday star she got an inflatable birthday crown (with extra tokens!) to wear for the rest of our visit. Not only was Morgan excited about the pizza and her new birthday crown, but she was excited about all the games and rides that Chuck E Cheese offers. Greg and I took turns playing with her- this picture is from a Greg trip. He said that all she wanted to do was ride this thing around and around and around....well you get the idea.

She played video games, ski ball, whack-a-mole and plenty of other games. After all the main idea was to get enough tickets so that she could pick out a prize at the end of the day.

At the end of our trip we cashed in our tickets (a whopping 200!) and headed to the prize stand. Now let me tell you- from the minute we got there Morgan had her eye on a lollipop as big as her hand. Since is was her birthday I was ready to fork over the extra $2 and buy it for her. But she got to use her tickets- so she was pretty impressed with herself! In addition to the enormous lollipop she got a cool straw and three small Tootsie Pops which she shared with Elizabeth.

Now for those wondering how Elizabeth liked our trip, she loved it. Actually she loved Chuckie. At the front of the dining room is a stage with a robotic Chuckie. Every now and then the curtain opens, Chuckie comes out and talks and sings. Well she was pretty much in awe of the robot mouse. When he was gone she would stand there and yell "Chuckie!, Chuckie!" She would have been happy just standing there waiting for him to come back out.

When we got back home, we took naps. Both girls were worn out! But that night we celebrated yet again with cake! I made Morgan's cake on Friday and she got to help decorate it. I asked her what she wanted and we chose stars and circles. She even picked the colors- blue, orange and pink. Before dinner we had to stop at the grocery store for a couple of things and she was pretty insistent on getting candles for the cake. So we added some candles at the last minute.

This picture was taken before dinner, but Morgan was anxiously awaiting the cake. She wanted to see it about every five minutes. And that is her lollipop that she got at Chuck E Cheese!

Finally she got to have the cake- and it was a pretty big hit.

Elizabeth liked it too.

All in all it was a pretty good birthday! I guess I should start planning for next year. It might be hard to top this!