- We're going to the horse ride,
going to the horse ride,
- [Jackson] Mama I--
- Going to the horse ride
up he's mad about something.
(upbeat music)
^Hi I'm Hannah, and I'm the world's okayest mom.
Now if you have kids odds are
birthdays are a big deal in your house.
There for sure a big deal in mine.
I try to go all out for the kids
and do really special stuff to make them feel loved.
But for the most part I'm the one planning
the parties and how we celebrate their birthdays.
They'll choose the theme and the cake that they want.
But I'm really deciding when, where, and how we celebrate.
So I wanna try something different this year.
^Jackson's turning six, I want him to decide
^what he wants to do for his own birthday.
^So I'm going to take the money that
I would've spent on his party and give it
to him to use however he wants for his birthday.
Now here's hoping he doesn't choose something
like a new puppy, or 250 bags of M&M's.
But you never know what kids so let's go ask him.
First things first there weren't a lot
of ground rules for this because you know he got
to pick whatever he wanted to do.
But he's five years old, he's a kid.
He doesn't quite understand the value of a dollar
or what you can get for certain amounts of money.
He doesn't know how to budget.
We've gone to lunch and he's been like
don't worry mom I got this, and like opens his wallet
and pulls out a dollar.
And I'm like you are so sweet but that's not how it works.
So of course there's a little anxiety going into this,
But I asked him and this is what he said.
I want to go to Legoland, Legoland, Legoland, Lego.
So for those of you who don't speak kid,
he said he wants to go to Legoland.
(exasperated sigh)
Now Legoland isn't Disney expensive, but it's expensive.
It's about twice as much as I was planning to spend.
I have decided that I will not rest
until we figure out how to make this work.
I feel like theme park trips are something
that families save up for for a while.
So I wasn't really expecting this.
Matt and I are going to spend some time sitting down
and budgeting, and going over everything
to see how we can pull this off.
How could you say no to that face?
(laughs)
^Okay so the kids are asleep and so it's time for us
^to try to budget and figure out how we're
^going to make this trip work.
Here we go.
(upbeat jazz)
Okay so we figured it out so usually we spend
about 250 bucks per kid per birthday party
We realized if we do this for both kids birthdays,
we can swing the two-day pass to the park,
and the aquarium, and get a night at the hotel.
Jackson really really really wanted
^to bring my sister Stella she's like his best friend and so
^I remember like as a kid my parents would let me
do something with one friend for my birthday.
We're going to make it work for her to come too.
^We're Wyatt's only friends (laughs) so he's cheap.
We did it!
- Yeah!
- Go team!
- Oh that's horrible.
- I'm looking, I'm trying to look at the camera.
Yeah.
^Look what I got.
(laughs)
Are you excited?
I'm so excited, I'm so excited.
I think I'm more excited than you.
- We're going to Legoland!
- Whoo! (laughs)
Are you excited for Legoland?
- Eee Da buhda.
- Boogers, you have some boogers.
So Saturday morning we decided to get up super early
so we could try to get to the park when it opened.
Okay we're on our way.
- Whoo!
- We were only a little bit late getting out.
I'm very surprised by how fast we got this done.
And Matt and I have a couple little surprises.
- [Dad] Wyatt.
- We're going to McDonald's for breakfast.
- (everyone cheers)
- [Dad] Yay Wyatt, Jackson!
- Wow we never get McDonald's so this is a big deal
- That tastes really good.
- Mmm it tastes so good.
- Have you guys ever had a hash brown before?
- No I've never had a hash brown before.
- Oh my gosh.
- Not me.
- Matt have you ever had a hash brown before?
- I've had millions.
(laughs)
- So we're in the car, we're on our way.
We got McDonald's for the kids.
They're super excited until about an hour into
the drive I realized something.
I forgot the tickets (laughs) but luckily
I have them in my inbox so we're going to stop
at FedEx so I can print them out
Legoland doesn't accept digital tickets.
You have to like actually print them out
and show them to them and I'm not used to that so my bad.
^We are here.
- Lego, Lego, Lego, Lego
- We are in the park.
One of my favorite parts about Legoland by far
was that it seems like it's designed to wear your kids out.
We just went, and went, and went all the first day.
Whoo hoo Jackson!
We have our 3D glasses on, we're ready to go on the ride.
Woosh woosh.
- Rawr
(laughs)
- We're in Vegas now, so cool.
Watch Wyatt run, oh my God.
Can we just take a minute
to appreciate the way that Wyatt runs.
So as a park Legoland is a lot smaller than Disneyland
But the lines are short, the rides are quick,
and the height requirement is a lot shorter.
Pretty much for all the rides, both Jackson
and Wyatt could go on them together.
We're going to go on the Lego friends horse ride.
What color horse do you want?
- White.
- [Hannah] White.
- [Stella] Brown.
- Brown, and Jackson what color horse?
- Black.
- Black, I am not going on a horse.
Wyatt is a little too short for a couple of the rides
So he's going to get his face painted
- With Batman!
- [Face Painter] All right sweetie just rest your head back.
- Wyatt, you look amazing!
So the one thing about Legoland,
it's designed to sell you Legos.
There are Legos everywhere.
Everything is made out of Legos, it's amazing
and it makes you feel like, I want to build this.
I want to do this.
I, like, you.
You're so sweet.
So one of the cool little perks of our room
was there's a big treasure chest
and in order to unlock it you need to complete
a scavenger hunt around the lobby of the hotel.
We're going to do this scavenger hunt
and it's going to unlock the treasure chest
with a prize inside.
So the kids are going around counting things
and it's all Legos everywhere.
So we get up to the room with the combo.
And I'm really anticipating what's
going to be inside this box.
- [Kids] Whoa!
- And we finally opened it and it's like, Legos!
It's your travel guide.
Duh why was I expecting anything different?
It's Legos everywhere, everything's Legos.
But it was really cool that the kids each
got their own little Lego set from that treasure chest.
Because that was one less thing we had to buy.
Quick Parent Pro tip, if you're going to
be bringing your own cake to the hotel
you might want to bring utensils because I didn't.
Everyone wash their hands and eat cake with their hands.
Which I mean we're going to eat the cake.
Like there's no other way.
But the prime example of how Legoland is made for kids
is upon check-in I was notified of
the kids nightclub that's every night from 6 to 9 p.m.
^There is a kids night club inside of Legoland.
Any leftover energy they had from the day, like
that's where it goes.
Jackson I've got to get that kid in dance classes.
He's just letting the music control
his body he was going for it.
And the best part of the kids club.
I got my chardonnay.
That's right there is a bar across the hall.
And they will pour your wine in a plastic cup for you
to take across and watch your kids just get out
the rest of the energy they had left from the day.
So day two, since we've gotten most
of the rides done the first day,
Jackson wanted to do the aquarium on the second day.
So we are in the aquarium now.
We got our coffees.
They actually made it super kid friendly and fun.
- Daddy I found one of your favorite fishes.
- Whoa, look, oh my gosh look at the stingray!
Oh, oh my gosh, hello.
And then the first thing you get when you walk in
is this slide, that's so cool.
Right off the bat there's this really cool jellyfish exhibit
and there's this guy feeding them,
And this one man explaining all different
kinds of jellyfish, and how they eat,
and what they eat and stuff like that.
And so I saw this tank of jellyfish I had never seen before.
So I was staring at them for a long time
and waiting for them to get fed
because I wanted to see what that looked like
but it wasn't til about 15 minutes in
that I look down and realize that
I had been staring at a display of plastic bags.
At least I'm environmentally conscious okay.
So Sunday, our final day, we stayed until the park
closed because you know I'm getting my money's worth
but luckily it didn't close that late
because it's designed for smaller children it closed
at about five, which was perfect for us
to pack up and leave, and get home,
and not have bedtime be super late
because the kids had school the next day.
Goodbye Legoland.
And look what we have here (laughs)
Oh my God literally we haven't even been
on the road five minutes.
So there was one last thing that
Jackson wanted to do before we went home.
So we drove through Anaheim,
on the way back from San Diego.
And there's this really cool place
called Anaheim Packing District.
And they have these bizarre desserts.
I guess you'd call it a dessert.
And it's a rice puff that's soaked in liquid nitrogen.
And so when you put it in your mouth
and breathe out you get a lot of steam coming out.
Like cold air coming out and it's really cold
and you can get about to come out your nose
(laughing)
- Can I have one?
- It's coming out your nose Jackson.
But while the trip was super exciting and fun,
it was really emotional for me
because I mean any other parent can relate.
When your kid gets a year older it's just like,
where did that time go you know?
I feel like I blinked and he's,
oh my God that's so embarrassing.
I feel like I blinked and he's six.
And there was a moment at the buffet
when they brought out the cake
and everyone was singing and he looked
a little embarrassed, and I was just like,
oh that's him getting bigger and he's getting older.
So that, I mean I didn't log this,
but there was a lot of this throughout
the whole trip because for me as a working mom,
time flies so fast and I just I was so grateful
that we were able to give him that experience
and spend all that time together
and have that much fun together
but it's just like why why do you have to grow up you know?
So, sorry, (laugh) mom moment right there.
So how was your birthday?
- I had the best birthday ever.
- You had the best birthday ever?
- Mmmhmm.
- I love you so much.
- Because my mommy is the best.
- Thank you.
- And my dada
So that's all I got for today, I'm cleaning.
And if you had a birthday that you particularly loved,
or a party idea leave it in the comments.
^Or you can always text me, this is a real number
^and I love hearing what you guys have to say
^So go for it.
Now if you'll excuse me
I'm going to go start planning for next years party
Because you can never start to early.
Until next time.
Ugh, sh**
[Hannah] Gotta work on that Lego.
^(playful music)