Jamie’s 30th Birthday – What a Day!

A couple of weeks ago we celebrated Jamie’s big 30th birthday by doing a whole bunch of small things that equaled one heck of a fantastic day! Would love to share with you all about it, if you’re interested. 🙂

Last year, three-year-old Hadley couldn’t stop joking about wanting Daddy to have a cow party, so I decided to surprise both Jamie and Hadley by putting together a cow party. 😉 Do you remember?!

This year Hadley wanted Daddy to have a dog party (?), so the girls and I grabbed a ton of Paw Patrol decor at Target a few days prior.

I always wake up at least once a night, so I planned to run out to the kitchen to set everything up once everyone was asleep. Sure enough, I was up at 3:30 a.m. quickly setting up the kitchen table and then went back to snooze for a few more hours until the girls woke up to finish off the table cloth with lots of dog stickers. 🙂

I sneakily grabbed a box of everyone’s favorite Varsity Doughnuts the day prior and kept them fresh until the morning by taping the box shut all the way around with packing tape (a flawless tip one of their workers gave me a year ago).

We whipped out our family birthday plate, which Hadley always gets the biggest kick out of. I’m so glad I bought that $8.99 plate at Marshalls so many years ago. It makes every birthday breakfast a little more special. Here’s a very similar one if you’d like (glass, same size, style, etc).

Jamie opened a bunch of presents during breakfast, and then I told everybody to that we needed to be out the door by 10 for our first activity of the day.

Oh, I also had a little present for Jamie on the back deck ready for him to bring inside: 30 different kinds of craft beers. 🙂 (Thanks Meg for the idea!)

Doing something big (like a trip or party or something) for Jamie’s birthday wasn’t in the cards this year, and with his special day right on top of Christmas and all of his close friends either deployed or living out of town, having a local “family fun” day was what I had to work with. Soooo, first stop: our town’s 1st brand new family fun center and arcade. He didn’t even know it was open, so he laughed so hard and we bolted in there to have some fun!

We put $50 on a reloadable card and all went to town playing as many games as we could! We kind of felt like we were 10 years younger dating again while competing in skeeball, basketball, race cars, etc. It was ridiculous and a total blast.

Around noon we headed home to eat a quick lunch before I shipped him off to his next activity: a 60 minute float therapy session. He’d never done one of these before (neither have I), but I’d read that they’re really relaxing and good for your body. He lit up like a Christmas tree when I told him and was excited to go check it out. He said it took him about 15 minutes to fully relax since it was such a unique experience, but he said he would highly recommend it. He also said that it made him feel better being on the tail end of recovering from the flu.

He picked Old Chicago for dinner that night, and the night was made nearly perfect when Army won their bowl game with an incredible ending. The entire restaurant was hollering – even me! It was so exciting, and Jamie was beside himself (if you know him, this doesn’t come as a surprise. He’s a die-hard Alabama and Army football fan!) Our meal was excellent (discounted heavily because it was his birthday!), and he was excited to finally complete his first Old Chicago Beer Tour (110 beers). He started the tour on his 24th birthday, so it took him six full years, but he finally got his prize hoodie. 😉

We got home around 6:30 and finally sang Happy Birthday to Daddy, something Hadley had been dying to do all day. I’m honestly no good at making cakes look pretty, but I still just adore making them homemade for my families’ birthdays. They humor me and say they appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. 😉

This year I made Sally’s Tuxedo Cake and OH MY STARS IT WAS THE BEST CAKE WE’VE EVER HAD. Excuse me for shouting, but I mean it. I really, really mean it. (This is obviously zero credit to me because I simply just followed her instructions.) If you have 2-3 hours to devote to making the best cake you’ve ever had, look no further than this one. Wowweeee.

PS: Look at how teeny they were on his birthday last year! They’re still looking at that cake in wonder though both years. 🙂

The girls crashed hard around 8pm, and I think Jamie and I may have ended the night by watching an episode or two from season 2 of This Is Us. What a great day. I love this knucklehead so much and found myself thinking a dozen times that day about how grateful I was that I’m the one that gets to love on him like this as his wife. I’m pretty biased, but he’s an amazing person and deserved to know how much he’s loved on his special milestone 30th birthday. I love you babe!

Let’s chat!

How do you prefer to celebrate birthdays? Low-key at home? With a trip? Party?