Dave's 30th

Dave turned 30 this year, and we celebrated in style! I asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday, and he gave me a menu of food he wanted, told me he wanted to watch old movies (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and City Lights), and go to Costco. Ha! He loves Costco, but never gets to go anymore because he doesn't work near one anymore. So, his birthday was on a Friday this year so we went to Costco for lunch and a quick bit of shopping. It was fun to be there with him since I usually do the Costco run by myself. We had a great time, and Lydia was our shopping buddy. 

Thankfully Dave had to work that day, because I spent the whole day getting the house clean, making his treats, wrapping his presents and decorating so he would be surprised when he came home. I barely got everything finished before he got home! He wanted Pepperjack Potato soup and homemade bread for dinner, so I had it all ready and waiting for him when he walked in the door. 

Dinner was SO tasty! I'm glad he chose that for his birthday meal because I love it so much too. :)

I feel like your 30th birthday is kind of a big one, so I wanted to do something different to make it special for him. I decided to give him 30 presents - one for each year. Now, don't worry. I still kept to our birthday budget - mostly. I had to get pretty creative, but thinking up the presents was half of the fun for me. He got a few homemade coupons (good for one date to Boondocks, good for one fancy dinner, etc.). He even got a few things that we already had around the house!! Haha. Like a pack of gum, and a car freshener. But some things were more exciting. He got some movies, some flip flops, some treats, and other things that kept it fun and exciting. I numbered all of the presents, so it was fun for him to open them in order.

I had so much fun wrapping all of his presents. I really, really love to wrap presents!

Dave had a little buddy to help him open his presents. She of course wanted to eat all of the paper.

I saved the best present for last.  His 30th present was a book of thoughts and memories collected from Dave's friends and family. My sister-in-law made a book just like it for my brother's 30th birthday earlier that year, and I thought the idea was so great that I asked if I could copy it. It was kind of cheating, but I just thought that he would love it so much. He was really surprised when he opened it and quickly started reading through the things everyone had written. I included as many pictures as I could find that coincided with what people had written, and I wrote 30 of my favorite memories with him and mixed mine in with everyone else's. So, it was a big book and took him a long time to read. He had thought we were going to watch the old movies he had chosen for that night, but he got too wrapped up in reading his book to watch any shows. By the time he was finished, it was super late and we were too tired to watch anything. I didn't care though - I was just so happy that he was so excited about it. A big thanks to everyone who wrote something for his book - thank you for helping make his birthday so special!!

I had to pry him away from his book long enough to get a piece of his birthday cake (he requested funfetti with pink almond frosting) and homemade ice cream (he requested homemade strawberry).

I was teasing him because I told him his birthday plate looked like a 5-year old little girl's party. Pink funfetti cake with pink ice cream. Haha! He just looked me right in the eye and made this face at me, so I had to take a picture. I just love him so much.

We watched those movies he chose over the weekend, and had a whole bunch of treats from Dave's birthday presents, plus the leftover cake and ice cream. So, his birthday pretty much lasted the whole weekend, at least as far as birthday treats were concerned. It was so fun to celebrate with him and to plan such fun surprises for his birthday. 

Happy 30th birthday, Davey! Thank you for being the best husband and daddy in the whole world. I love you for all of forever. :)