Mark's Birthday Weekend

Today is Mark's 39th birthday! We had a great weekend celebrating all of his years. :-)  Most of Mark's birthday weekend consisted of eating his favorite foods.  I know what makes him happy.  :-)  Friday night we had pizza for dinner.  Saturday morning we woke up early and got online so that we could sign up for one of Mark's birthday presents - swim lessons.  The Cobb County parks and recreation offer swim lessons at a reasonable price but they fill up within 5 minutes of registration being opened!  Thankfully, Mark was signed in and ready to go.  He will start his swim lessons in January!  woohoo!  Afterwards we went to Canvas for breakfast.

I think both girls enjoyed it!

After breakfast I told Mark that I needed some "alone time" after being by myself with the girls all week.  He agreed.  My alone time consisted of spending a couple of hours at Lindsay's house preparing for a surprise party!!   Brad and Lindsay were so kind to offer to host a surprise party for Mark at their home.  There is no way that I could have kept it all a secret at our own house.  I dumped stuff at their house all week and they helped me get everything ready. 

Mark knew that we were going on a "date" Saturday night so we had a babysitter come over.  Shortly before we were going to leave I got a phone call from Lindsay saying that they needed more fire wood for the bonfire at the party.  Eeks.  One thing I learned this weekend is that I"m a good liar or secret keeper depending on how you look at it.  :-)  In real life I had asked Mark to build a fire pit that I saw on pinterest and he had said that was a good idea.  For the sake of the surprise party I told him that Lindsay had stolen my idea of the fire pit and had built one in their back yard first and that they needed fire wood.  We left for our date with a few pieces of fire wood in the back seat to drop off at Brad and Lindsay's.  To make a long story short, Mark took a bit of time to make it into the house but when he did, he was very surprised to see all of our Sunday School friends plus a few others.  I think Mark is still in shock over the whole evening.  He keeps telling me that he feels so honored that "everyone came to wish me a happy birthday" as if he doesn't deserve to be loved and appreciated.  I'm really glad he enjoyed it and am super surprised at my secret keeping/lying skills.

We enjoyed one of Mark's favorite meals - taco soup with all the fixings.  I love that as adults we still sometimes enjoy boy tables...

and girl tables!

A few years ago, Katie from Sunday School, nicknamed Mark "cookie monster" and it has stuck.  Lindsay saw some cookie monster cupcakes on pinterest and did a great job making a replica cookie monster cake.  We all enjoyed reading some stories and looking at some old pictures of Mark - mullet, beard, wife beaters and all.  :-)

We had a babysitter for the evening but she brought the girls over to visit for a bit.  Caroline and Mark enjoyed some cookie monster cake together!

and then roasted some marshmellows together.

We had a wonderful night celebrating with friends.  I could not have asked for anything better!

Sunday morning we had breakfast together and opened the last of the presents...a bit of running gear and a new Bible.  Mark had not asked for a Bible but his old one was falling apart.  I was a little worried that he may not want to part with the old one but he gladly took the new one to church so I think it's a keeper.

After church we completed our birthday celebrations by going to Ted's for lunch (where he thought we were going on our date).  We then enjoyed a somewhat lazy afternoon...at least as lazy as can be with two sweet girls who did not want to nap!  :-) 

I'm very thankful for Mark and the sweet husbad that he is to me and even more so for the great Dad that he is to our girls.  I'm looking forward to this year together because we all know once he hits 40, it's all downhill.  :-)