Surprise, Josh! You're Old!

I totally remember when my Mom turned 40. I was 12 and she got a tattoo. I thought she was the coolest.

 

I sorta, kinda remember my husband turning 40. It was this past February 13th. We had a 9 day old baby. And we ended up at the strip club. Maybe Jace will look back and think his dad is the coolest too??? #parentsoftheyear

 

In all seriousness, I had really been struggling to figure out what I was going to do for Josh's big four-oh. I mean...we had a baby on the way and there was no telling how that was going to foil the plans (darn babies...). But with mere days before his birthday...I was walking through the diaper aisle at Target when it hit me: SURPRISE PARTY

 

I had five days to rally the troops, and boy did they ever rally!

 

 Step 1: the decorations.  My sister came in town Thursday, so we ran all sorts of errands to get ready. When Josh headed to work on Friday, we got to decorating. I printed off a ton of 8x10 photos of his childhood/mullet days and we hung them from the ceiling. We also made Josh mullet head sticks that were a huge hit at the party:

 

Step 2: the decoy. I told Josh that I would meet him out at Bonefish after work for some birthday happy hour drinks. Petey picked me up and we headed out to meet him. Y'all - this was the first time I felt like a human in nine 7.5 months. It. was. awesome. I got to do my hair and go out and have a beer or two. Happy birthday to ME Josh!

 

Step 3: The surprise. I made strict instructions that I had to be home by 7 to feed Jace.  I don't do schedules, so I'm not sure how Josh didn't catch on to that...but it worked!  We even got a video:

 

 

In his own words, he had "no damn clue!"

 

 

Step 4: Celebrating! We mingled and celebrated and held babies and laughed at Josh's pictures for a few hours. Baby Jace even got to meet his girlfriend, Meadow! She's beautiful :)

 

 

 

 

 

Josh got the hook-up with some presents too.  Besides the $15 gift card to Krystal's that his wonderful wifey got him, he also got these suckers. Our friends are so nice? I especially love the retirement home brochure from Dusty's mailbox #props:

 

Step 5: The after-party. The night ended with a trip to The Mouse's Ear (look it up) and a late night at Rooster's. The next morning was not a pretty sight. I bawled my eyes out in pain and my failure at motherhood, and Josh spent the entire day doing this:

 

 

Happy Birthday, Old Man! Those hangovers only get worse from here :)