Josh's Birthday Surprises

Yesterday was Josh's birthday. We celebrated it last week with Josh's family with cake and presents the whole deal. But anytime you do that, when the real birthday comes along you still want to do SOMETHING special for them that day. Earlier that day I had taken the kids to the Dollar Store and gave them each $1.00 to buy their dad something special. My only request was for them to pick out something their dad needs or would like to have. They walked around for what seemed like forever! They took the challenge very seriously. After about 45 minutes they had their special hand picked gifts ready. And I have to admit there was thought in each and every one.
Katelyn was pretty quick in picking out her gift. She remembered Josh and I complaining about our newly discovered ant problem. She knew this would be something he could actually use. Ant bait. I laughed and laughed when she showed it to me, but I knew she had put thought into it. Katelyn, always so practical.
Mason went straight for the candy isle. He's always using his head. He knew if he got his dad some candy there would be a good chance his dad would share. One of Mason's and Josh's favorite games to play together is Mario Kart on the Nintendo. When he saw this Super Mario Kart candy, he knew he had to have it. I thought it was very cute.
Emma took the longest to find something. In fact, at one point she came up to me and asked where all the "dad stuff" was. I told her to be creative and that the store was filled with things her dad would like. She eventually came up with this paddle ball set. Everyone knows Josh loves sports. This was something he didn't have already. I told her it was perfect. In fact, the rest of the night Josh and I were up competing against each other to see who could paddle the ball the longest. I got up to 183 feeling pretty good about it. Well, once Josh got up to 621 I knew it was time to go to bed.

All in all, Josh had a pretty good birthday. Combined with our dinner to Johnny Carinos he loved all of his gifts and could see each of the kids personalities in each of their choices. It's fun to see as your children get older to see how predictable and sometimes UNpredictable they can be. But on this occasion there were no surprises.