Dave's Birthday

I had already orchestrated his birthday so that it ended up being great. But I wanted a chance to celebrate with him, and make sure that I really have made up for ditching him on his 30th birthday. So I had in store a surprise party for him and his friends. I had sent out an email invite the week before and a reminder one the day before. I had it all planned out so that I could be cooking for 30, at times when he wouldn't see. He always goes to the gym in the morning. So I scrubbed all 29 potatoes and placed them in the oven. I cooked all the bacon (that could easily be explained, as it was morning) and both his birthday cakes, and took it all over to Karen's with the bottled water and soda to chill in her fridge. By the time he got home in the morning I was done with almost all I had to do to prep the food...and he didn't even suspect. I even explained away the cake smell with making cookies for Zenny who had helped me out a lot with my plane ticket to California! Anyway, we had a normal day and around 4:30 I acted like I forgot to pick up a picture at Costco that I NEEDED for tomorrow. (I was going to send him for pictures AND diapers but he found my stash of diapers I was hiding so it looked like we were out. I played it off on the kids :) Anyway. I told him he had to go NOW so that he would be home in time for dinner. And then we would have family night so he couldn't go after. Like a good husband he consented to go. I gave him $0.50 for the picture, and he was off. I forgot to tell him to look at the picture when he picked it to make sure it looked good. And after he picked it up he went to the mall to buy new basketball shoes. It gave me plenty of time to get the house set up, and the dinner ready. People started showing up around 5:30 and I texted him to look at the picture. This is what it was...

He called me and said "celebrate what?" He didn't even think of his birthday 'cause he had already celebrated with his fam! When he got home, this was waiting on the door for him. I didn't want to try to do the lights off, "SURPRISE" when he walked in the door. So this was how I did it. He was VERY surprised and we still said "Happy Birthday" and "Surprise" just a little more low key.
This was on the front door. Which made it hard to keep Aubree and Soph inside. They escaped a few times, but returned safely each time.
I designed all the decorations by my self using pages on my mac (after Karen showed me how) and I was pretty proud ....until I saw it all come together, and realized that it looked like an "over the hill" birthday. In fact I even had one friend comment about that! I was just trying to make it not look girly so I went with blacks and gray's and by the time I realized my mistake it was too late to change it.


Sadly I forgot to take pictures of it all set up...and it looked really cute..but theses flags were on individual slices of his b-day cake.
And I had a banner set up with similar display arrangements like I did at Sophie's party.

I also forgot to set out the potato chips and ice cream. I guess I can't remember it all! But I did remember to take some candids. After about 3/4 of the people had left. Here they are.








To end the night. Sophie had spilled her orange soda all over the floor in front of the stove. But she wasn't about to let that stop her from drinking it!