thanksgiving

Last week was busy with several Thanksgiving activities.

We made turkey cards for the parents and grandparents...and somehow I never got a picture of the finished product. My baby takes his crafts very seriously...most of the time anyways. :)

Then we made a Thanksgiving tree, which was an idea I got from another friend's blog. My kids named all the things they are thankful for and wrote them on leaves and we made a tree trunk out of brown paper and stuck the leaves on the top like a tree.

It was fun to hear the things they came up with to be thankful for. Of course there was the typical "mommy and daddy", "kiki", "my brother", etc. But then my oldest wrote, on the yellow leaf on the bottom left, "lemins" (lemons). ! Not quite sure where that came from, but sure, ok! :) Can you see which one was my favorite? I don't know why, but I just got so tickled when my baby listed some of the "usual" things...followed by the one on the red leaf on the right..."my socks." :) I'm glad he is thankful for his socks! Some kids don't have any....

Thanksgiving at my parents house was quiet this year and I totally forgot to take my camera. However, the day after Thanksgiving was my dad's 60th birthday and Mom planned a surprise party for him. I got to decorate, which is my job of choice on any party! :) I went to Party City in search of ideas and decided that I just did not like all the sad, black, "over the hill", old person with a walking cane, sad to be 60 theme! This was supposed to be a celebration! Then, as I wandered around a different part of the store, I saw the 50's theme which had a lot of old records and classic cars...and even a necklace that said "clearly a classic"! So I went with a "classic" theme...which seemed much more positive and happy!

I have decided that streamers are one of the cheapest and easiest ways to decorate a room for a party.

We had our friends, the Bunn's over for dinner. We used to go to Pastor Chris's church when I was in middleschool/highschool and that is where I met my best friend, Shannon. :) We are still good friends with the Bunns but so rarely get to visit with just them, so it was a lot of fun getting them to ourselves for dinner.

After dinner we were supposed to have about 30 minutes to clean up and get ready for the rest of the surprise group to come...however, just then there was a knock at the door and one couple was standing there when Dad answered, saying, "Happy Birthday, John!!" Haha! They were half an hour early!! It sort of ruined the surprise, however dad didn't know exactly who else was coming (and neither did I, it turned out!)

While the men visited, Mom, Robin, and I cleared and reset the table with party food. (Not that we were that hungry after a delicious steak dinner!) :)

The three little cars in the middle of the table were my favorite decorations. I needed something for the middle of the table and was wishing I had some old toy classic cars when I remembered that Steak & Shake serves their kids' meals in little paper cars! I simply went by S&S and asked if I could have a few (gotta love free decorations!). They were the perfect thing for holding munchy foods like M&Ms.

There were quite a few friends who came to surprise Dad - several couples from their Sunday school class, some neighbors down the street, friends from here who Mom knew in college, and friends from OR who I literally hadn't seen in at least ten years!!

It was so much fun getting to catch up with everyone as we watched Dad open his presents.

My brother and I gave him a gift card to one of his favorite stores...Home Depot. Of course. However, a gift card is so small and I did not want to just put it in a card. So I found ten gift bags. Heehee! See the big red one in the bottom left corner? That's what we handed him. In this picture above, he is about half way through the bags, trying to see if there is any gift in them at all!

There was! And it was in this little tiny bag! :)

Mom made TWO cakes for the occasion - Dad's favorite, carrot cake, and also a Most Delicious red velvet cake - YUUUM!!! (Leah, Mom later wished that we had asked you to make one of the cakes for us! :) Oh well...maybe another time!)

I couldn't resist these fun candles - the super tall "60" ones and the shorter colorful ones that sparked like a sparkler as they burned! :)

Dad saw the two layers of candles and came out prepared...can you see the fire extinguisher in the corner?? :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!! :)