Celebrating Forty

A few weeks ago we surprised The Husband (we'll call him Jay today) with an early 40th birthday celebration. I was so glad when the day arrived because he is a sneaky one and I had to keep covering my tracks. He noticed the punch and soda in the closet and said to me with a huge grin on his face, "Hmmmm that's a lot of drinks, what are they for" wink, wink, nudge, nudge. I quickly explained that I got them on sale (which was true!). He just nodded his head like 'Yeah, right". Well, I knew he would keep checking in there, so the morning of his party #3 and I dumped everything into pitchers and then filled all the bottles back up with water and food coloring and returned them to the closet! We should be secret agents, I'm telling ya!

Needless to say, he was surprised. This is his fake surprised reenactment:

I wanted to include the table decorations for anyone interested. I had no idea what to decorate with short of all the black YOU'RE OVER THE HILL-type decorations. So, the thought came to me a few days before to decorate with things about him and make each table a theme. I put together collage prints from Costco ($1.49 each) with pictures pertaining to the theme and then on the back of the frame were "fun facts" about Jay in regard to the theme. I joked that it was sort of like a Jay museum. Allow me to walk you through....

This is the "Family Jay" table, on the back of the picture frame were letters the girls wrote to Jay that I typed up to display. Bubbles were the party favor at this table and I wanted it to have an outdoor picnic feel to it since we spend a lot of time outside as a family.

This is the "Wild & Crazy Jay" table. Guests at this table were encouraged to draw all over the table covering and it had disco ball necklaces as party favors. I took this picture before anyone got there and forgot to take another one after the table was covered with artwork! He wore those Blue's Clue's ears to an audition at YFC a few years ago and he sang the Blue's Clue's song! On the back of the pictures were questions to ask him regarding the many wild and crazy things he's done, such as why his step mom wandered why there was cat hair in the freezer and how many times he's dumped ice water on me in the shower or pushed me in a pool!!

This is the "Sporty Jay" table. His favorite sports facts were listed on the back of the picture frame and the orange table covering is for the Dolphins. I also stuck little sports stickers all over it. The party favors were sports themed blow out things.

This is the "Actor Jay" table and it contained mementos from the shows/films he has been in. The party favors here are hand clappers and it's hard to see but those are silver stars on the fabric.

This is the "Marine Jay" table complete with plastic military men for entertainment! On the back of this collage print I listed his duty stations and the medals and achievements he had received. I didn't think the table cover would be white down the middle, I thought it was all camo print so I cut it up and made his name with the leftover camo (you can kind of see it on the other side in this picture). I would hope that Antonio from Design Star would be proud of me for that last minute idea!

This is the "Need for Speed" Jay table...which was probably my favorite! I got that fabric on clearance for $1.50 and the dry erase boards were the party favors (Christmas clearance at Target, 25 cents a piece). This tied in perfectly to the group gift we all chipped in for....

He will be driving an actual stock car at Pocono Raceway in May! He gets to take 8 laps on the track and he is extremely excited!! The party was nice and some of my family members even made the trip over from an hour away. Then, Brandon made him a funny video using clips from all the other films we worked on! We also gathered around him and I recorded a variety of friends praying over him....it was very powerful and I could just see him overflowing with encouragement. We had a wonderful night and I am so glad he has so many wonderful friends that helped make this celebration very special!