The Birthday Boy

Last year was Bill's big 3-0. We were still fairly new in town and I tried to make it a memorable celebration, I still believe he was a bit disappointed. So I knew I had to make up for it this year. His birthday was on a Monday, so we decided to take the kids on one of his favorite outings the Saturday before... we visited the Museum of Natural Science.
We discovered a new exhibit, the chemistry one. The girls loved the experiments! Their favorite was the 'diaper' experiment. The polymers in a cup that clung together when water was poured on them, didn't fall out of the cup when tipped upside down- they were impressed!

On Monday- the actual day- we planned to have a small family celebration with Bill's parents. Bill requested blackened salmon so I paired it with this tasty rice. Traditionally he's been a carrot cake fan, but this year he asked for chocolate, so we topped off dinner with this decadent cake. I had prepped most of the day and was on track for our 6 pm 'party'. You can imagine my disappointment when Bill called at 5 to say it was going to be at least 7 before he got home. I pleaded with him to do something different- for the girls' sake. So he was home by 6:40 and left again at 7:50 to head back to work and then returned again at 10. Some birthday!
But we savored our hour and a half! The girls decorated the wrapping paper...
And were delighted with dad's new Wii game. They were in their gymnastic clothes, just for fun.
Dad and the girls have played almost every night this week. Can I just say how much I LOVE this game? It's age appropriate for all of us and the girls can be independent, too. It's active, clean, and a great indoor gross motor activity... aka: energy release. My very favorite is watching Brooklyn dance to "Who Let the Dogs Out". She raises her hands over her head and tries to jump. When we say the title of the song, she even starts barking.
But the celebrating wasn't over yet! Bill and I had planned a date night last night to celebrate. He really wanted me to get a bunch of people together to go to dinner. But, somehow everyone was busy last night... or so Bill thought. He was quite shocked when we arrived at PFChangs to find 5 couples waiting for us. (It was a 3 way surprise/celebration. We were pretty stealth!) After dinner we headed to the Johnson's for a hot chocolate bar and to play some Kinect and Just Dance. How negligent am I that this is the only picture I got of the whole evening? But it's a pretty good one of these men showing their dance skills!

Buck, Reed, Ben and Bill... MC Hammer style.

Happy Birthday to my wonderful, astute, fun-loving, supportive, caring, peaceful husband!