Justin turned 31 on May 31 so it was his GOLDEN BIRTHDAY!!! Now I don't know if it is just because I feel I was deprived of this celebration (with my golden birthday occurring on my 1st birthday!--funny that mine is the first possible age you can have your golden birthday and his is the last...), or that his 30th Birthday seemed too lame, but I really wanted to celebrate this one in style and spoil him rotten! So I did. :) He actually wasn't even there on the morning of his birthday since there was a Stake Scout Camp the 30-31. I was actually pretty bummed he wasn't home for his birthday and made his leaving even more annoying to me. Plus the fact that that evening was the adult session of Stake Conference and so he'd get home at 4 or 5 and then one of us would go to the session at 7 (since it was for both stakes and they invited all kids 12 and up to the adult session?! Babysitters??). Boo! ANYWAY, it actually worked out quite nice and I got A LOT of surprises done even at 26 weeks pregnant watching my 4 kids! Yes I am tooting my own horn...because I was wonder woman that weekend and deserve to!
First I did TONS of yard work, including planting 191 flowers, pruning bushes, and weeding the front flower beds. This alone is enough to make Justin's year. He loves gardening and yard work...well I don't know that he loves it but he loves things getting done and is the hardest, most focused worker I've ever watched.
After doing all that work I stayed up until way too late/early painting this sign. This quote is one of Justin's favorites and while I was planning these things as decorations for his office, he really wants it in our home, and I think he is right. Such a good quote to ponder. This is one of the ideas I've had in my head for months and finally was able to throw it together while he was gone. The guy who did our backyard took apart the pallet and cut the wood for me while he was cutting the wood for the border around the basketball court. Thanks Brandon. :) Justin would also be happy to remember that the pallet this wood came from was the one that our massive food storage order was on...another of his favorite things. Emergency preparedness!
And yes, I did get that little longer piece chopped off. My brain can't handle uneven things.
This is the second project I've thought of for months. When we were in Utah his mission buddy, Mark Dibb, had something similar but on a much bigger scale hanging on his wall. It was a quote their mission president used to always say to them. "Good, Better, Best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better-best." Apparently this is a photo of the end of a water tank they have in Australia that all the workers would gather around to get their water. Anyway, their mission president had one of the tank ends at his property in Utah and Mark grabbed a picture last time he was out there. Another gem of a quote. I think we'll hang this one above the piano that we don't have yet. :)
Since daddy wasn't home yet we got to clean and decorate too. Basically I raided the dollar store of anything they had that was gold. I was happy they had something because I didn't have a chance to go to Lethbridge to a party store or anything. Zach helped me make the triangle banner out of gold pipe cleaners!
Tissue paper pom poms, wrapping paper number, gold ribbon...
The kids and I even dipped the plastic fancy cups in corn syrup and yellow sugar crystals...I wanted gold, but this was as close as I could come. And it was hilarious seeing the sugar ending up on the bridge of people's noses when they drank the punch. :) Pretty unnecessary and annoying, but awesome and gold(ish).
And this is what Kate thought of all the fuss. :) She actually had a lot of fun shopping for and decorating for the party. They LOVE when I get super into holidays and such. I just caught her making this face talking to me and thought it was super creepy/funny.
Mmm...delicious (garden) carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. I went to a bakery in town to see if she had gold dusting powder or any gold decorations for the cupcakes. She said she didn't but said she was going into Lethbridge to an exact store that did and that she would pick it up for me and bring it to my house!? So nice of her! That's a small town for you. Needless to say we bought donuts a few days later. :) I also learned a lesson from this though. The dust was fun, but unnecessary. I found yellow sugar crystals that I already had in my cupboard (the ones I used for the cups) and thought I really should have just used them! I can often be too detailed oriented on silly things and at that point yellow did not equal gold. It had to be gold on the golden birthday.
Here's the birthday boy with his treasures. He LOVED the signs and I could tell they meant a lot to him...and I was glad because they took a lot of thought and time! And I was so excited to give them to him! Those are always the best gifts. All the other junk is just that to him...he doesn't like pretzels or raisins, or werthers, or chocolate loonies, but they were wrapped in gold or had the word gold with them so he got them! Little did he know that they were actually the food for his SURPRISE party later that night! He had no clue. And actually, when he got home from camp and was so exhausted that he sent ME to the adult session (I was supposed to stay home and get the party ready for guest arrival right after the session?!) I felt bad I even planned this surprise because we were BOTH so exhausted and he would have rather just gone to bed at 9:30. I could tell. And I was so tired I would have been just fine with that! But instead he partied with some friends for a few more hours. Sorry hon! But not sorry. You can only celebrate your golden birthday once in your life. ;) And you can't celebrate it on June 1 either...it had to be the 31st and 9:30 on was all the time we had to work with!
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The spread at the surprise party!! Golden oreos, Dole Gold pineapple and golden delicious apples with dip, caramel popcorn, Rold Gold pretzels, golden grahams (that were supposed to be made into bars but I didn't have time!) twix bars, golden raisins, golden punch (white grape juice and ginger ale...YUM) and other stuff that I don't remember!
And I had to MAKE Justin wear his personalized gold WWF belt we got him at the dollar store too. He tried to take it off a few times that night...nope! :)
The next day we had the leftover cupcakes and his delicious birthday dinner of ribs and other stuff. I had to make some more cupcakes...a yummy white cake with strawberry icing. Yum again.
It was a gooey drippy icing. Kinda messy but delicious!
HA! We told Addie to lick it off her elbow! She almost did! I thought that was impossible.
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!! I know your 26 week prego wife planting all the flowers would have been enough for you, but I hope you enjoyed all the rest of the fun and felt as special as you are. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH.
All 31 years of you. :)
