Our New Favorite Birthday Tradition

Last year, Lexie and Coen's birthdays fell days before the pandemic made our world shut down. We were able to celebrate their birthdays, but had to put their birthday parties on hold. Lily had been hoping for a big birthday party with her friends, because she had never had a party with classmates due to having a Summer birthday, but as August 3rd approached, we knew it wasn't going to happen. She was so diappointed, so we decided to come up with a fun alternative!

On Lily's 9th birthday, our new favorite family birthday tradition began! We tackled our usual birthday traditions, then after Grant finished work for the day, we loaded into the car, dropped off our dog at my parent's house, and took the party to a hotel with a swimming pool. Thanks to lack of travel during the pandemic, we had the entire hotel to ourselves!

We had such a great time that we decided that it needs to be a permanent tradition! Once a year around Dylan's birthday, once between Lexie and Coen's birthdays (14 days apart), and once between Lily and Liam's birthdays (15 days apart). I thought it would be fitting to share our new favorite tradition on Lily's half birthday!

Lily's 9th Birthday started off as it always does. She woke up to a room filled with balloons, and a new outfit hanging on her closet door. We sang Happy Birthday to her, and enjoyed our traditional birthday donut breakfast before letting her open one gift. 

While Grant worked, Lily played with her new toy, visited with her grandma, had her mini birthday photoshoot, and packed her bag for her fun evening ahead! We decided to tell her where we were going ahead of time, and she was just beaming with excitement all day. She asked us each hour if it was time to go yet!

And, finally, it WAS time! We packed up the car with overnight bags, baby gear, and presents, climbed in, and headed out for Lily's birthday adventure. We took a brief detour to my parent's house to drop off our dog, and so they could see the birthday girl, then we stopped to pick up Taco Bell food for Lily's birthday dinner, and slushies and soda from the convenience store. When we arrived at the hotel, we filled an entire luggage cart with our "party" supplies, and headed up to our suite!

We truly had the hotel to ourselves, and we ended up getting the biggest suite. It was a bit creepy, but cool! First on our agenda was Lily's birthday dinner. It was definitely rushed, because everyone wanted to go down to the indoor pool!

Lily and the rest of our kids were so excited to go swimming, which made Lily's birthday adventure extra special. The pools in our area had been closed, so they were really missing it. Now they had a huge indoor pool just to themselves, and everyone immediately jumped in! 

We stayed in the pool for hours, until our eyes burned from the chlorine.  At that point, we decided we needed a little break from the pool. Lily really wanted to open her birthday gifts, so we headed up to our suite for a while.

When we got back to our room, Lily asked to open her presents right away. We dried off while she opened the little gifts, then each of her siblings gave her a special gift. Finally, Grant and I gave her the gifts we chose - a baby doll she had been asking for, and a pair of rollerblades that we thought she would love. Lily loved everything, and she was so thankful for all of her gifts!

After presents, we headed back down to the pool until it closed. Dylan eventually fell asleep in a chaise lounge, but the rest of the kids were going strong. Everyone was so happy and thankful, and also a bit tired from all the fun. We headed back up to our room, showered, and changed into pajamas. 

The last thing on our agenda before Lily's birthday came to an end was birthday cake! We brought along a cookie cake and her candle. We didn't light it, but we sang Happy Birthday and had her fake blowing it out! After we ate the cake, everyone was completely exhausted, and we all fell fast asleep.

The next morning, we woke up early enough to go for a quick swim before checkout. I brought along mini donuts and milk, so we changed into our swimsuits, then ate a quick breakfast. We all headed down to the pool for some post-birthday fun!

After about an hour of swimming, we had to dry off, get dressed, and gather all of our stuff so we could check out. Thankfully, we were able to keep the luggage rack in our room since the hotel was empty, and we already had it loaded up, so the process was quick. Anyone that has kids and/or a big family knows how stressful checking out of a hotel can be, so we were very grateful!

Although our hotel birthday party came to an end, the fun wasn't over just yet. After a quick stop at the store for some snacks and drinks, we headed straight to another adventure. We finally took ALL of our kids to our favorite hiking spot, and had a fun family hike! 

Lily had an amazing 9th birthday! My kids like to say they had the best birthday ever every single year, but the smile on Lily's face said it all. She kept thanking us for the fun birthday and awesome gifts, and didn't seem too bummed over the fact that she wasn't having the skating party she had her heart set on. Instead, we all decided that we should continue this new tradition to make birthdays extra special!