Happy Birthday (yesterday) Mike!

Since Mike was camping this past weekend, Claire and I took the opportunity to finish up the office as much as we could to surprise him for his birthday. He came home a day early due to the rain, but we rushed and in the end, we were successful. I still have to move two lamps into the office, but they are currently being used. They will have to wait until we can find some replacements. The whole process of finishing the office had kind of a domino effect. A table that I was using in our bedroom was moved to the office, but it had to have a replacement in the bedroom. So I spray painted some shelves that Mike's dad and I built and used them as a replacement, but then the items that used to be on those shelves needed a place. You get the idea. Doing one room spread into three others. Anyway, here are some pictures of what we did. Nothing very drastic, just moving the components around a bit, and also adding things to the walls. Its pretty surprising that we have lived here for a year and there are still walls that are entirely empty. But that is no longer the case in the office!




























As far as room decor goes, Mike is all about theme. So the theme I picked was 'Places We've Been'. It was really fun to choose the pictures. We've really been to some cool places and have some pretty amazing pictures that have done nothing but sit on my hard drive. It was really satisfying to get them up in a place where we can look at and enjoy them every day.

Then we had macaroni and cheese (the request was that I find a copycat recipe for Boston Market's cheesy macaroni, so I did. Its very cheesy, to say the least) with cornbread and angel food cake with fresh fruit for dessert. I think Claire enjoyed Mike's birthday as much or more than he did. Every day she pretends it is someone's birthday. Usually its Uncle Jim or Uncle Dave, but yesterday was the real thing and since she's had so much practice, she definitely knew what to do. I think Mike was served pretend birthday cake (complete with singing of Happy Birthday) 6 or 7 different times. It was definitely a fun day for all of us.