They brought Dave a special birthday dessert during breakfast. We all shared it (and it was good).

Adam’s friend, Pirate Ruby, asked him if he’d be her Junior Chef for the day and help open up the hotel restaurant.

There was dancing and a little parade.

Then Adam read a statement proclaiming the restaurant officially open.

He was so happy that out of all the kids there, they picked him.

And here’s a video of it all:

I took a bunch of videos during our trip.

Here’s one of the elevator at the hotel. It played disco music as soon as the doors closed and we got lucky enough to ride it with Lego Jack during one of the trips.

The hotel had a pajama dance party each night. The boys loved showing off their dance moves during the PJ parade.

They also really loved the Freeze Dance portion of the evening. This next one is a little long, but I don’t feel like trimming it. So just stop watching when you’re bored.

Our second surprise for the kids was a trip to Legoland. Adam didn’t work out that we were actually going there until we were pulling into the parking lot. I thought for sure he’d have seen other signs on our drive. He even missed this big one I snapped a picture of on the way in.

We stayed at the Legoland Hotel and it was incredible.

We got to pick from four different room themes.  My mom had a pirate room and we picked the adventurer theme (think Indiana Jones). The rooms were so fun. The walls were decorated with Lego art.

Right off the hotel lobby was a big play area. The kids had a blast playing there.

They had characters coming in and out of the lobby fairly frequently.

Adam made friends with the pirate making faces in this photo, but more on that later.

Maggie didn’t care for the characters that had their faces covered. She loved the Lego Friends Characters though and ran right to Olivia and gave her a huge hug.

Here’s a picture from the adventurer room. The kids had their own little nook in each room. It had three beds (there’s a trundle bed tucked under the bottom bunk) and a TV. They loved having their own area.

The rooms were tailored to the kids, which I had expected, but they really thought of everything. There was a small stool in the bathroom to help them reach the sink, a scavenger hunt that resulted in lanyards, juice boxes, and Lego sets for them to keep, and “The Lego Movie” played on repeat on one of the TV stations.

Everything was awesome.

Now, the kids knew we were going to Florida to visit Dave’s parents. They didn’t know that we had a surprise planned before then. Dave and I pretended that the GPS accidentally sent us through the Orlando Airport (not a huge stretch, since it really did send us through the Atlanta Airport the night before).

The first of our surprises for the kids was that my mom had decided to join us for two nights in Florida.

As we slowly drove through the arrivals area, Luke nonchalantly pointed out, “Hey, there’s Mabel.” Adam, on the other hand, was completely flabbergasted.

This was the first of the two days we spent driving down to Florida. Adam was off from school. so when Dave got home from his class we loaded up the van and started our vacation. You can see Maggie in there all buckled in and ready to go (the mittens were her idea).

We stopped for lunch a couple of hours into our drive.

We also stopped at the Tennessee welcome center.

The kids were excited to do a little exploring and stretch their legs.

We had a lot of delays which added to our trip. We saw this car on fire, by the time we got up to it the flames were out. Thankfully it didn’t look like anyone was hurt.

So we got to our hotel in Atlanta later than we wanted to, but it all worked out okay. A couple of weeks ago, I got an email about  hotel points that were going to expire soon. They were from before we had kids and I used to travel for work. So we ended up being able to stay in a really nice room for free (well we had to pay $8 for parking, but still – a great deal). I still have points left too so we have two nights booked for another adventure in June.

The kids loved their big bed for the night.

We got up really early the next morning to get back on the road. Luke especially was not happy with this decision. He woke up so crabby – poor kid.

Thankfully it didn’t take too long for Luke to get back to his normal happy self.

The kids really did great during the drive. I had packed some new sticker books and magnet toys to help entertain them. Adam and I visited the library before we left and picked up some books on CD. I wasn’t sure how the kids would like them, but they loved them. The books were part of the “Magic Tree House” series and each one took about 45 minutes from start to finish. We listened to seven on the way to Florida and six on the trip home. I was really surprised by how much the kids enjoyed them. It almost has me looking forward to our next long drive so we can listen to more.

Two and a half weeks ago (I’m playing catch up here), the kids participated in our neighborhood’s Easter Egg Hunt. They had a blast and the families that organized it did a great job.

Adam was thrilled to see a bunch of his friends there – especially his best bud, Isaiah.

Syracuse went much further in the NCAA championship tournament than they were expected to this year. Maggie even got to wear the dress I made her two years ago – though now it was more like a shirt.

Then:

Now:

Still super cute and it makes me want to sew more clothes for her.

Here’s a short little video of Maggie at gymnastics today.

Saturday we started our day with an Easter train ride.

The plan was to ride the train for a bit, stop for a visit with the Easter Bunny and an egg hunt, and then take the train back to the station. However, the weather had other plans. It didn’t stop Dave and the boys from spending some time on the open train car though.

Inside, bunny helpers brought eggs to the kids and the rabbit made stops in each car. Luke was not at all interested in posing with the Easter Bunny.

He did like showing off his train shirt that Mabel made him though.

When we got home, the kids spent some time building with legos. Adam did a nice job letting Maggie be his helper.

We went out again that afternoon.

We took a family outing to the movies (it was Maggie’s first movie ever).

She lasted all but the last ten minutes of the movie.