Jane Austen is my Hero: Happy 30th Birthday Ben!

Yesterday, we celebrated Ben's 30th Birthday. Birthdays, aren't a very big deal to Ben, but my Mom always made birthdays special for us, so they are a big deal to me. Naturally I love it when birthdays roll around. I love being sneaky and planning little surprises.

Hyrum insisted that we get balloons, party hats, and streamers. I started to decorate the house the night before and realized I couldn't reach the ceiling without a chair, which I knew Ben would be mad if he saw me climbing on chairs when I was pregnant, and I always have trouble blowing up balloons, especially when I'm pregnant. So, I had a bit of a dilemma since I knew Hyrum would be expecting to see the decorations he picked out. Ben therefore insisted that he put most the decorations up, despite my protesting. So, Ben decorated the house for his own birthday.

I tried to redeem myself a little bit though, by getting up early and popping some cinnamon rolls in the oven for breakfast.

I love surprises, but surprising Ben is really hard to do. He's just too darn observant. However, I totally got him this year. The day before his birthday I had made 3 loaves of pumpkin bread to bring to his work. When he got home, he asked what all the bread was for and I just lied and said it was for the people I visit taught (convenient since I visit teach 3 women.) He was so surprised when we showed up at his work yesterday morning with the bread. Needless to say, everyone liked the bread. Ben admitted to eating half a loaf by himself.

After work, we had another surprise, Ella was running a temperature, so we had to run her to the instacare and sure enough she had an ear infection (we had taken Hyrum just the day before for an ear infection and pink eye). Fortunately, we were still able to go to dinner and gorge ourselves with chinese food. Afterwards, we came home and opened presents.

Again, it's really hard to surprise Ben. He'd been asking for the Transformers Movie since he first saw it in the theater, but I didn't just want to wrap up the DVD or he totally would know what it was. So I was sneaky and put it in a shoe box. He had no idea what it was.

I also was able to get him his favorite game, Risk, but it was actually a Transformers addition, so he totally loved it. Now I just have to avoid him asking me to play.

The last present was a little unusual. A bunch of guys at work have nerf guns and they are always sneaking around and shooting people. So I got him the biggest one I could find. He looked like a little boy on Christmas. He was going around the house like a maniac shooting everything. I may have to take the toy away and hide it.