Happy 50th Birthday, Bobby! May 30 ~ Part 2

I can't believe my hubby has turned 50 years old!  He still acts like a big kid though.  Ha ha! Well, if anything - Daddy wins this award of "Best Farter Ever".  Oh wait, we meant "Father" :-)

The morning started with Daddy making pancakes for Graham and Charlie.  So, business as usual eventhough it's Bobby's special day:

Wow,... looks like it was a tough morning for Daddy :-P

Okay, we will let that nap slide but back to work!

Getting the boys to wash the car too???  I'm not sure if they are actually getting all the dirty spots cleaned or just making a mess of getting hard water spots on all the glass.  Hmmm....

Job well done boys!  The yard looks awesome as Graham does his "dab":

So it seems that the "dab" has been around since 2015! As per the internet, dabbing has been used as a gesture of triumph or playfulness.  Just in case you were wondering :-)

Bobby is crazing for spicy wontons so he drives out for Take Out at one of our favorite Chinese restaurants.  And the only way to get the Take Out is to actually walk into the mall, to get to the Chinese restaurant.  Bobby took this photo - look how empty it is!  Obviously everything is still closed:

A little while later... family we-fie.  Dinner is served!

Yay to me for not having to cook but I did offer to cook gnocchi.  I guess it didn't sound as appetizing as spicy wonton with rice. Ha ha!

After dinner and clean-up, it's time to bring out the birthday cake or actually a pie.  I made Bobby a cherry-strawberry pie with homemade crust.  I used vegan butter for the crust and it was really difficult to roll!  So it was quite the task to get it even put together, but somehow I managed.  Since I couldn't roll out the top, I decided to just put the chunks of crust to cover as much as the top as possible:

Time to sing Happy Birthday!  

Here is the video of the birthday song: https://youtu.be/b9uahmLD_eg
Yes, you did hear Charlie say "Awesome Daddy" and Bobby chiming in with "Totally awesome Daddy, in every way...!"  Yes, totally humble :-)

I love how Graham and Charlie automatically participates in the candle-blowing task:

And total participation in the gift unwrapping task too:

Another fancy smart watch! Just like the one that Graham got for his birthday.  Charlie is sad because he doesn't have one... yet:

I totally forgot that I had bought Bobby these new fancy lightweight bendable, good for computer blue light fancy (wait, I said that already) schmancy reading glasses:

Looks like the glasses work??!

On to the next gift... The Financial Times has been great wrapping paper lately :-)

The boys printed out some birthday cards for Daddy:

And they also wrote a poem each for daddy.  Brought some tears to Daddy's eyes!

I actually copied an idea that I saw online.  I seem to be good at copying stuff. Don't ask me for any original ideas.  Ha ha!  Here it is, all drawn out using a light-up tracing pad - the typewriter part:

Here are the boys' poems:

I actually wrote Bobby a poem too - in a Haiku style.  Here goes:

Daddy

Always farting

And lots of loud burps too

Happy 50th Birthday

Love you!

So romantic, isn't it - in my own little way.  Ha ha!

And one final gift - these I have been saving for a really really long time.  I had purchased these even before moving to this house, so more than 1.5 years ago!

I had purchased them at one of the library book sales.  It's called "Abraham Lincoln - The War Years by Carl Sandburg".  There are 4 volumes of it:

I think Bobby really appreciated these!  He is such a history buff and for whatever reason, when I saw these years ago on a shelf - they just seemed like a perfect gift for a milestone occasion.  It's just too bad they are not the first edition.  Otherwise they would be worth about $600!!!

Happy 50th birthday, honey!  We love you!!! XOX

Happy Birthday, Bobby! (Part 1)

It's Bobby's 50th birthday!!!  Well technically, it's still the day before his birthday, so he is not quite there yet.  Somehow we have come up with this new tradition of being able to open up one birthday present the day before.  Sooooo... no peeking as we didn't wrap up the gift:

Ta da!!! Here's our handy-dandy decoupage work on a pop-corn tin that we got for free.  And we used Daddy's favorite newspaper - The Financial Times, and we tore up little pieces of number to put the date at the bottom of the tin:

Graham also made Daddy a nice hat, or his new "thinking cap" for his work :-)

Since there was so much glue left, I decided to decoupage my own little trash bin as well with another pop-corn tin:

I used 2 pages from the "How to Spend It" magazine, which is also part of The Financial Times actually.  It's a magazine that comes in every weekend.  The second page I used was blue in color and has jewelry on it:

Yup, lots of bling! :-)

We don't have much planned for Bobby's birthday tomorrow, but we still have a few birthday gifts up our sleeves.  Can't wait for him to open them :-)

More work on that Drain

Sooooo.... yes, it's that dreaded drain again.  Hopefully this might be it, but then again I can't really tell how well it is working after the next rain.  And who knows when that might be!

Well, if anything I really needed to fix these pavers that were leaning against our neighbor's fence.  The weight of the gravel and not getting these pavers deep enough was an issue:

I couldn't quite get the pavers much deeper but I was able to see why the water was overflowing.  So... back to "open surgery" with this thing where I had to get all those gravel up and pull up the weed/landscape fabric.  Hopefully by making it slightly deeper and wider might work??!

If anything, at least the pavers are all lined up in a straight line and not leaning against the neighbor's fence:

What am I going to do with all this dirt now???

I also fixed the area where the overflow of the rain barrel is.  Again...

And during this time, I was asking Charlie to sweep up all the purple flowers that had fallen on our driveway.  Not sure if he has the correct technique there.  Ha ha!

These trees are so pretty... but so messy!!!

Well, I've figured out what to do with all that extra dirt.  I've decided to fill up the drain that the boys and I dug up!  Ya,.. this drain hasn't really seen a lick of water so I figured I'd go ahead and just close it up:

If anything, there are still gravel at the very bottom so in a sense, it is still a drain. In my mind, at least. LOL!!!

By the way, here is what the Graham and Charlie left me on the driveway.  Doesn't look like much progress.  Ha!

I pulled some extra flowers from the garden and planted that on top of the drain:

I finally made a trip to the local hardware store yesterday - my first real trip out to a store since the last 2-3 months!!!  It was nice to have some alone time outside of the house.  I picked up some mulch and also some more gravel.  Ta da!!!  I think it looks pretty good :-)

So for now, just waiting for the next rain :-)

More backyard stuff

Here's one more thing that we purchase as well for the backyard.  It's like a little "fairy" spot.  Just missing some fairies now :-)

The sun has been getting to our outdoor dining table by about 4pm-ish.  We tried to use the huge triangle sun fabric that was left behind by the previous owner.  It was put above the trampoline but as the boys are jumping higher, it just wasn't quite suitable anymore.  So... we tried:

But nope!  Ha ha, it was just not high enough.

In the meantime, the Venus flytrap found a yummy lunch.  Looks like a lady bug. Blah...

Maybe I shouldn't have put the lady bug wind spinner in the pot??!

There is only one little flytrap left in the pot.  I'm not sure how much longer it will survive.  So perhaps it was a fitting last meal.

Speaking of meal, I finally had Bobby go into our usual supermarket and buy my favorite poke dish.  It's raw tuna with rice and some lettuce, avocados, fried onions, and some special sauces.  YUM!!!

Bobby is loving his hammock still.  That was his birthday present last year.  This year we have a few things planned up our sleeves :-)

The trampoline netting has ripped again!  And unfortunately, Graham did actually fall out of the trampoline onto the pavers.  Oops... well, the pavers have now been removed and we have ordered a new net. 

We have actually been trying to order a new trampoline for a few weeks now but there weren't any in stock at our local sports stores here.  And the ones online have been waaaaaaay too expensive.  So, another patch job while we wait for our new net.  I also ordered a couple of new metal rods:

What's crazy though was there was no bruise on Graham's back where he hit himself on the paver.  He was up and running about the next day.  Phew!  We definitely got lucky there!!!

By the way, here is Graham's butterfly wind spinner.  Isn't it so cute!

So, as for the sun shining in at our table in the afternoons, we hung an IKEA wire thingy and clipped on a drape.  Ha ha... might work temporarily:

But every time the wind blows, the drape ends up being pushed to one side.  Looks like we will have to work on this one some more.  Like I always say, never a dull moment in this household!