Elliott's EPIC 4th Birthday

I hope you are in a comfortable seat because this is one hell of a blog post to summarize one hell of a day. 

I dragged myself out of bed in a timely manner on Wednesday morning so I could make chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast.  We reused the candle from his Snoopy cake.  I have to make it worth the $2 I spent on it. 

Winston visited during the night and hung a banner for Elliott.

After breakfast I got the kids to school, came home and then worked out.  Then my dad arrived from Tucson to deliver our new hand-me-down wine refrigerator.  He went with me to pick Elliott up and then we went to Sears to pick up our new mattress for the guest room.

Bye bye old mattress.

Hello new, big, thick mattress that totally biffed the bedskirt when we put it down.

My dad left right after we got the mattress set up and then Elliott and I headed out for our big east valley mall tour.

Let me expain.  When I asked Elliott what he wanted to do on his birthday he said he wanted to go to the mall and to go see Mr. Chad (his occupational therapist).  I decided if we were going to do it, we might as well do it all the way, thus, an entire tour of malls.

Our first mall was Superstition Springs mall in Mesa.  I don't think I've ever been there and if I have it was a long time ago.  Elliott always likes to park outside of downstairs Dillard's (that's normal for a preschooler, right?), so I obliged.

The whole mall tour was totally ridiculous, so I decided I was going to photograph the whole day in great detail.  You know.  For blogging purposes.  I'm just not going to show his official 4 year old picture yet, since that will be it's own post.

In Dillard's

Washing hands and smelling candles in Bath and Body Works- two of his favorite mall activities.

Riding elevators

In Dillard's again.

Riding escalators

We left Superstition Springs mall and went through the drive-thru at McDonald's.  Elliott wanted fries and a smoothie and it was his birthday after all.

Then we went to Fiesta Mall.  Fiesta Mall is close to being shut down.  It's just sad.  We parked outside of downstairs Dillard's (shocker!) but there are no festive decorations because it is like their outlet Dillard's and there were no festive decorations.  It was also freezing in there.  I don't think they have heat in there anymore.

There was a nice little nativity in the mall area.

Elevators

We left Fiesta Mall and headed to Chandler Mall.  Each mall trip got shorter than the previous one and had less pictures.

We parked outside of, wait for it, downstairs Dillard's.

We went to the Cheesecake Factory at the Chandler Mall and I let Elliott pick two slices for later that night.  Then we took our cheesecake and went home.  We got there just as Spencer got off the bus.  I changed clothes, we all went to the bathroom and then we drove back to Spencer's school to give his teacher her gift.  After that we headed to Agritopia in Gilbert.  Let me see if google will give me a good description of Agritopia.

Here you go:

Agritopia® community is something of a modern day village set within the urban fabric of the Phoenix metro area. The name says it all: Agritopia® is about preserving urban agriculture and integrating it into the most neighborly, well-designed community possible. It is a principle-driven development that puts people and relationships ahead of money and trendiness. We believe that a simple life with friends and family is a rich life. The design of the community is intended to breakdown traditional barriers between people to encourage formation of real community among people of varied backgrounds .

The community is comprised of 450 residential lots along with commercial, agricultural, and open space tracts. Agritopia is gridded with tree-lined streets and pathways to make the entire project accessible to pedestrians. The major connector street within the community is Agritopia Loop, which arcs its way from Ray Road north and east to Higley Road.

Anyway.  Mr. Chad and his wife own a food truck together and they sell dinner at Agritopia on Wednesday nights.  I figured that was our best bet to see him since it would be kind of rude for us to storm in on some other kid's therapy session at the hospital.

But first, more 4-year-old pictures.

See the old fashioned silver airstream camper with the red shade?  That's their food truck.

We got to chat with Chad and his wife Erin for a bit and then we took our treats (brownies for the kids, a cookie for me) over to the coffee house to eat.  I got a delightful gingerbread latte to go with my gingerbread cookie.  It was the best part about the day.

There were other food trucks too.  I want to go back and try them all.

This is a happy kid.

We left Agritopia and headed to the fourth mall of the day.  Guess where we parked!  Yep.  Downstairs Dillard's.

The sun was setting by this point and the San Tan mall is an open air shopping center so we didn't spend much time there.  It is still so, incredibly cold here!

We got back home around 6 and I set up the camera to take a family picture.

Then we headed to the fifth and final mall of the day.  

Arizona Mills is our least favorite mall, but it's where the only Rainforest Cafe is and that's where we had decided to go for Elliott's birthday dinner.  Kids eat free for $2.99 on Wednesdays, so it was perfect.

You can't see it, but there is an alligator (that he calls a crocogator) behind him.

It was our first time at a Rainforest Cafe.  It was pretty cool.  And totally empty.  I mean nobody was eating there at all.

Michael and I are standing like this because Spencer decided to use my white sleeve as a napkin for his BBQ sauce and then acted as if he had NO idea how it happened.

We stopped at Trader Joe's on our way home so I could buy a gift for my speech therapy aid and then, finally, we made it home for good.

And it was time for presents.

Spencer's gift to Elliott.

New footy pajamas.  He has outgrown all of his footy pajamas and he really does love them.

5T shirts even though I vowed to not buy any more 5T clothes.  They are biggish though.

A crash mat to he can crash all the live long day.

And then, finally, finally, more than an hour after his normal bedtime, it was time for cake.  

Elliott picked Chris' Outrageous Cheesecake (layers of chocolate cake, brownie, coconut pecan filling and chocolate chip coconut cheesecake), and

Carrot cake cheesecake.

After we finished eating cake he talked to his grandparents on the phone and then, way, way, WAY too late, crashed, although it was into bed, not on his crash mat.