Ben Is 45! April Fools!

I put a lot of thought into Ben's birthday this year. It was a day full of surprised. The first one started at work. My mom and I had made him a poster size card which included pictures of all his favorite things...such as his riding lawn mower, his man crushes (Jason Bourne and Rudy) and turtleneck sweaters. Then we got a goofy picture of him and blew it up and put it with these pictures. When he first saw it he didn't realized the card was from us and he thought "I must have a stalker!" Huh.

The next surprise was his orthodontic appointment. I'm mystified why he scheduled one on his birthday, however it made the day a little easier for me to manipulate. I simply called and canceled his appointment so the kids and I could meet him at Red Robin for his birthday dinner. And I must say, I was extremely dissapointed with the staff because they didn't sing to him. Don't they understand that's the only reason we went there (not to mention their Monster Burger)?

So after lunch I made a big deal about this being such a big surprise for him, and wasn't he glad that he didn't have to go to the orthodontist today? Hahaha, he never suspected the REAL surprise was yet to come.

Several weeks ago I emailed some friends and asked them to join us for a party at Anthony's. I'm not sure how in the world we all kept it quiet (especially me!). For some reason Ben decided that his birthday dinner absolutely needed to be at Tollie's so he could get a burger. "Honey," I said, "You just ate a burger." "Yes, but you can never have too many burgers." "But I've really got my heart set on going to Anthony's." "Yes, but it's MY birthday and I get to choose." Well, he got me on that one. It took the whole day to convince him that I was just CRAVING Italian food. All along, he never suspected an ulterior motive. Hahaha.

So we get to Anthony's and I park in the back. As we walk up to the restaraunt I try my hardest to block Ben's view so he won't see the huge table full of our friends and wonder why they might all be there. Hmmm? I don't know. And as we walk in everyone starts singing Happy Birthday. It was delightful! I have never seen Ben so surprised - or so red faced! It was grand, the perfect ending to our day!

Well, actually the perfect ending was seeing the gag gifts. There was a contest to see who would bring the best gag gift. I was a hard choice, but Ben finally decided the best gag gift was from Michelle (all of you who were there know which one I'm talking about). She got a prize - a copy of the Far Sides greatest hits.

And if you didn't already know, Ben is ONLY 28.