The beginning of the end…

Merrick turned 29 today! He’s beginning the final year in his twenties! Crazy how time flies. We realized the other day that we’re only a few weeks away from the 10 year anniversary of our meeting. What young crazy kids we were back then. We’ve come a long way!

Well, as is tradition in the Smith household, we set up a nice party display. We went with a sports theme for our MVP Dad this year.

The girls LOOOOOVED helping me. Camryn got out, played with, and re-hid Merrick’s wrapped presents every day all week. I let them help me with the decorating and the cake, which was a lovely soccer ball in a grassy field.

I found the idea online and I just made a chocolate cherry cake with chocolate icing. Then I used food coloring to dye some coconut green. For the soccer ball I baked up half of a cake mix in a pyrex glass bowl and flipped it over, frosted it white, added 100 Calorie Oreo Crisps and piped on some chocolate frosting. Easy peasy. I told Merrick I’m using his birthdays to practice making boy cakes. Maybe someday I’ll have a boy and then I’ll have a whole repertoire of cake ideas to draw from! :)

We spent the morning having a yummy breakfast, hanging out for a little while, then finally going over to the new Costco in Pewaukee. It opened up a couple weeks ago and we’ve been so busy we haven’t made it over there yet. I think Avery was most excited about the SAMPLES! They had a ton out and she was starving so she couldn’t get them in her mouth fast enough. Quite a nice way for the kiddos to try new things, I must say. We didn’t get much but it was fun to check it out for future shopping trips.

Thanks to everyone who sent a card and well wishes. I’ll finish off the post with a funny story:

We bought him some new dress shoes online for his present from me today and he asked me if he should get the cool hip slip ons or the more classic lace ups. I told him maybe since he’s turning 30 next year he should get the lace ups since they’re more grown up shoes. He said he thought maybe he should get the slip ons so because he might not be able to bend over and tie his shoes in his old age! Bahaha!

Happy Birthday, Merr. We sure love you!