The Holmes Family: Brad's 30th Birthday

On Brad's birthday, we were up and running fairly early in the morning. First, we took Jillian to school, then we picked out a balloon bouquet for Daddy, bought him a fun book about Curious George's Birthday Surprise, went back home and quickly packed a picnic for lunch (I actually set my timer, so I would get out of the house in a timely manner...that's a good "trick"!), went to Jerry's to buy a couple of Philly cheesesteak sandwiches, then went to pick up our order of speciality "gourmet cupcakes", before finally picking up Brad from work! So, needless to say, Anna was a little tuckered out by the time we actually made it to the park.

Faith however was super excited to be spending lunch at the park with the "birthday man"! She told me while we were running errands, "Daddy is the BIRTHDAY MAN!". I thought that was so cute!

Here is the assortment of birthday cupcakes I got for Brad! Our family ate five of the cupcakes for dinner that night and then sent the rest with Brad the next day, so he could share with his friends at work too! :-)

Anna was still a little tired but quickly perked up when she discovered all the picnic food.

Brad reading "his" new book to the girls. :-) Faith chose the book especially for her daddy.

My handsome hubby. It was the most beautiful day (in the low 80's!!!) to celebrate Brad's birthday.

We had some bubble-blowing time.

It was Bubble Heaven for little Anna

and four-year old Faith too!

Brad was the BIRTHDAY MAN BUBBLE-MACHINE! ;-)

In addition to us enjoying our bubble time together, we enjoyed the swings, slides, and school bus too!

After all of our fun at the park, Brad went back to work and we went home for rest-time for the girls.

Then after Brad got home from work later that afternoon, he had a visitor with a special surprise : Michelle with a A CANDY BAR CAKE! This was Michelle's very first "candy bar cake" to ever create and Brad was the VERY happy recipient of it!

Brad's customized cake included Hershey's chocolate bars, 3 Musketeers, and dark Milky Ways on the exterior and then on the inside there are a couple dozen fun size dark Milk Ways, along with Dove dark chocolates! Brad estimates the cake weights close to 20 lbs in all of its yummy goodness!

Earlier in the week, Michelle and I had come across something similar to this (NOT nearly as cute) on the computer while we were doing a search for "candy cakes" for Anna's Candyland party coming up this Saturday. (I am super excited because Michelle is making the cake for the party...Woohoo!) When Michelle saw this, she instantly thought of my sweet tooth husband and wanted to make one for him! She asked me to tell her all of his absolute favorite candies and as a result made him this awesome cake.

As if Brad wasn't already spoiled enough, Michelle also made some of her famous and delicious home-made cinnamon rolls for his birthday too!

All week, Jillian was so excited about her Daddy's birthday and our family's upcoming birthday party for him. First, she told her entire kindergarten class at school on Tuesday that her Daddy's birthday was on Thursday. Then on Wednesday, she did the same thing at Sparks!

Faith did the same thing, except she "upped" the suspense a little bit and told her Cubbie's class she had an "announcement" to make. :-) Mrs. T said she and all the other teachers were on the edge of their seats waiting for Faith's news that our family was going to have another baby, but instead she told everyone it was her daddy's birthday the next day. I love how very proud and excited they were about their Daddy's birthday! :-)

An added bonus to his two daughters' enthusiasm for his upcoming birthday was EVERYONE (all the teachers and the kids) wished Brad a very happy birthday that evening when he picked up the girls at AWANA's.

Brad very much enjoys my cooking (or at least he says he does ;-) but we try not to eat out very much, so as an added special treat, we ordered our favorite local Chinese food for dinner.