Brooklyn turned 8 years old on February 13th, which was hard for me to believe. It doesn’t seem like she should be that old already! She really wanted to have a birthday party with friends again this year, but we ultimately decided to forgo that because of the pandemic. We weren’t on board with an indoor party (none of us, including grandparents, were vaccinated at that point), and it’s hard to plan an outdoor party in February. Some days in February are warm, but some are super cold! Instead of a party with friends, we ended up having small celebrations with both sides of the family. We still had a fun weekend celebrating our big eight year old!
Sarah and her girls brought over a birthday gift and homemade cards for Brooklyn on February 12th. It was FREEZING cold that day, and Brooklyn still went out in short sleeves and barefoot…ha. It was so sweet of them to think of her, and Brooklyn was excited to get to open a gift a day early :)
Brooklyn has a really hard time waiting for things (probably like every kid), and she likes to ask and ask whether we will let her open any of her birthday gifts early. I finally caved and told her she could open one more gift that night before bedtime…
The gift she chose to open was a bag of new chapter books. She was excited!
Brooklyn has really grown to love reading over the last year or two, and it’s rubbing off on her sisters too :)
Brooklyn’s actual birthday fell on Saturday this year, and Paw and Rae Rae came up to spend the day with us. That made everyone happy!
Brooklyn opened a few gifts that morning before we ate lunch and headed to our fun afternoon activity…
The main thing she was hoping to get was a big Toothless stuffed animal (from the movie “How to Train Your Dragon”). She was so excited when she opened the box and saw it!
She had also asked for some Star Wars light sabers, which Aunt Jenn and Uncle Chandler bought for her. Those were a really big hit too! She also got a few more books and a small cheetah stuffed animal.
I loved this card that Savannah made for Brooklyn :)
We ate lunch, and then it was time for cake :)
Now that she’s so old, it’s hard to blow all the candles out with one breath…haha
In lieu of a party, Brooklyn asked if we could visit the Cook Museum in Decatur instead, and Paw and Rae Rae came along with us. It was more crowded at the museum that I expected it to be (although you can’t tell it from the pictures). When we bought tickets online for a specific entry time, not too many other tickets had been purchased. Thankfully, it wasn’t so crowded that we felt uncomfortable. I think we were still just getting used to going places indoors again after everything shut down.
Everyone seemed to enjoy our time there! Brooklyn and I went to the Cook Museum on her 1st grade field trip, but the rest of the family had never been before.
Brooklyn wanted to race through each room, never stopping long enough for the rest of us to see everything ;) That’s so Brooklyn! So that’s why she’s not in very many pictures…haha
There are lots of hands-on areas throughout the different exhibits, and Abigail enjoyed getting out of the stroller for those parts.
This room of the museum was really neat! The girls enjoyed touching a real meteorite from outer space :)
You could also learn about the layers of the earth, and how the earth is positioned in exactly the perfect place to support life–not too far from the sun and not too close either. That definitely didn’t happen by chance!
This beaver lodge was a lot of fun to explore!
The Cook Museum has a lot of live animals, including this big turtle.
Savannah took her time at all of the hands-on areas…
There’s Brooklyn up ahead! ;)
The aquarium is one of my favorite parts of the museum…
We saw a huge turtle swimming with the fish, According to one of the employees, there were a couple of sting rays in there too, but we didn’t see them.
Climbing the big tree was fun for all three girls…
…as well as crossing the rope bridge!
The World of Insects was the one area of the museum that Brooklyn and I didn’t see on our first visit, so we were excited to check it out this time. I loved all the butterflies!
Abigail’s favorite part of the museum was the toddler play area. She loved it and probably would have spent all afternoon there.
Brooklyn’s favorite part of the museum was the kinetic sand table, and we went back a second time before we left so that she and Savannah could do it again. I feel like the museum is really geared more toward older kids, but there was definitely still enough to keep the girls’ attention.
It was a fun afternoon, and we were glad that Paw and Rae Rae were able to go with us!
The next day, we had Sunday lunch at our house to celebrate Brooklyn’s birthday with Travis’s side of the family. She loves Star Wars, so I thought it would be fun to buy a few Star Wars decorations for the kids’ table. Brooklyn requested hamburgers, but the weather was supposed to be really cold, so we ended up going with plan B – BBQ meatballs, roasted red potatoes, mac and cheese, green beans, and broccoli slaw. She also requested ice cream sandwiches for dessert, which was funny considering the weather. We managed to fit 8 candles in her little ice cream sandwich…it took two big blows for her to blow them out ;)
As far as gifts, Brooklyn got several more books, coloring books (including a really neat Bible story coloring book from Cici), a make-your-own book kit, and a craft kit. You can tell she loves to read and do crafts…two of her faovrite things :) She had another fun day!
We love our sweet Brooklyn!
