THE BIG 3-6

[Picture courtesy of Miss Ava - which is why the angle is not all that fabulous. :)]

The Mr. turned 36 today. He was not so excited about this special day of his, and I understand. As we get older, birthdays seem to become less and less exciting and eventful as it simply marks the passing of yet another year. I know, I know, it sounds so negative; so depressing, so ho-hum, but it is the truth. If you are an adult, you know it, birthdays in your 30's and 40's are far less exciting than what they were in your teens and even 20's for that matter.

Anyway, I convinced him that he needed to act as if it was a very, very exciting day. For the kids sake. They had spent time carefully picking out his gifts, wrapping them [with Moms help], making homemade cards, and planning a pizza dinner out.

They truly planned the whole day and were so excited when he finally arrived home from work early that evening. This part of the birthday celebration, him arriving home early, really helped me to realize he had taken my requests to make this day out to be very exciting seriously.

Why, you ask?

Well, because Dad arriving home from work early is almost unheard of. Dad arriving home from work at 5pm, which is when he walked through the door is not only unheard of, it was straight up shocking to witness. We usually don't see Daddy until close to bed time each evening, if not after, so you can understand why.

The kids ran to him immediately yelling over each other "open my present Daddy!" "Read my card first Daddy!" They could barely contain themselves.

Here he is opening his flip - flops Lucas got him. He was really loving the bottle openers on the bottom of them. Lucas explained, "Dad, those are for when you need to open your beer."

Liv did not seem to want to wait for Daddy to open his present so she started without him.

Daddy was so happy to see she had picked out such nice polos for him.

Daddy loved the card that Miss Ava had made for him. You can always count on Ava to make you something very special.



Daddy loved the shirts that Anthony picked out for him as well. He got lots of big squeezes from Daddy for his gifts.

And last, but certainly not least. he opened his gift from me. If you look toward the bottom of the picture you can get a glimpse of what that gift was. Underwear and socks. I know, not very romantic or sweet, but he needed them and wanted them, so that is what he got. He was happy and that is all that matters, right?

We ended the celebration at our local pizza joint by inhaling a huge pepperoni pizza and drinking pop [what a treat.]

So as you can see, it was a very special day. And I have to thank the Mr. for going the extra mile to make his own birthday seem over the top special for the sake of the kids. They enjoyed every last minute of it.