Larry's birthday Hullabaloo!

 Mr. Ford had a birthday yesterday. I knew he wouldn't have much time for celebrations on his actual birthday so I surprised him with Spoil Larry Day on Saturday.  In the morning I handed him nine little envelopes with cards directing him to his plans for the day.

Larry's the kind of guy who will say he just wants a hug or dinner together for his birthday, and with all the chaos that has ensued this last year, I'm afraid he's been gypped on Father's Day and our anniversary so I wanted to make up for it.  

I almost asked for a day alone for my birthday to do whatever I like because as much as I love my children, it's almost impossible to try on new jeans or have a relaxing lunch with them in tow, and it's nice to have the opportunity to do things like that once in a while.  Larry always wants to spend his birthdays as a family, but I knew he needed a chance to do a few things on his own too so I tried to plan the day to be a mixture of the two.

I had a few letterpressed little cards from Sycamore Street Press so I wrote an activity on each one and Larry had to complete it before he opened the next one. Most of them were simple things that I knew would please him like, downloading some new songs for the soundtrack to his day (his I-tunes wish list is a mile long because he sticks to an agreement that we made when he was in medical school to only buy one song a month) and a few apps in case he got stuck in line anywhere.

The second one was to meet up with us for brunch.  Third was get a haircut (he's been saying he's needed a haircuts for days, but we've just been to busy). Fourth, stop a Barnes and Noble, browse all you want and don't come out without a new book.  And so on.

I made a reservation for him to get a massage, but the night before he mentioned the circus was in town and he really wanted to take the boys so I cancelled the appointment and bought tickets to the circus instead.

Larry was right, the boys LOVED it!

 Ollie was enraptured by any animal act, but he especially loved the elephants.

 Since yesterday was Larry's real birthday, we couldn't let it go unnoticed.  He woke up to a note on the bathroom mirror (thank you chalk ink pen)

 He worked and then met us a Creed's last soccer game. We had just enough time to go out to dinner and end the night with a stack of Larry's favorite cookies from Flour Boys & Dough Girls (have you had their chocolate chip shortbread cookies?  SO GOOD!) before we tucked the boys into bed.

It was simple and sweet, but I think a good time was had by all.