He is a big BYU football fan, so when I found this pin on Pinterest a year or so ago, I told my mom right then that this is what we needed to do for Dad's 50th.
And so planning began. :)
It all finally came together the week we were all home for the holidays and it took some major logistical prowess on our part to have everything put together and ready while Dad was home all week from work.
But you just want to see pictures, right? So I'll tell you all about it on the way ;)
I made this invitation to send out to the guests. When everyone had RSVP'ed, we had a total headcount of 80 people! It's a good thing we were already planning on having at a church building!
The day of and day before were a flurry of secret activity. We faked drives for tired babies and girls' day out activities to go over to the church and set things up.
The set up crew :)
When everything was finally ready, it was glorious. :)
Ta-da!!! Mom had ordered a whole box of BYU party stuff from the bookstore and had to ship it to me so that I could hide it! When I drove down with the boys after Christmas, we had to stop at a friend's house before we got to my parent's to drop off all the party stuff for that week.
Nathan took home some pom poms afterward. It's really funny to hear him say "pom pom". ;)
I made the water bottle labels and the napkin rings in photoshop and cut out the field line numbers on my silhouette.
Mom made this fun field goal post out of PVC pipe - I made the name cutouts and bunting in photoshop.
We had another good cover story when my mom had to go to the stake youth new year's eve dance. So when I made the cupcakes that week, we just said they were for the dance! Of course, that meant I couldn't bake them in the totally awesome BYU cupcake liners we found at the bookstore, but they made a cute extra layer once they were at the party. I made the cupcake toppers in my silhouette program and it's always so nice when the silhouette can do all the cutting out for me!
Our dessert lineup consisted of vanilla cupcakes with buttercream, oreo truffles, decorated sugar cookies, and chocolate dipped pretzels.
I was a slight stress bomb the week of Christmas because I was dipping 60+ oreo truffles and making 100+ sugar cookies so that they could be completely finished (and hidden at our friend's house) by the time we went down to VA. I don't know that I'll ever get my oreo truffles smooth, but I think they were the crowd favorite anyway. :)
Oh Daddy, I must really love you! I was up till midnight on Christmas Eve flooding cookies, and then up till almost the same time the night after finishing all the details! I loved the way they came out, though the dark blue icing most definitely turned everyone's teeth blue. :)
In that center table we served Kahlua pig and our guests brought side dishes to share.
Mom was in charge of activities for all the kids that would be there and I have to say, she rocked it! We had corn hole, this table set up with coloring pages, and off to the side she had tons of toys and games and a video game set up (that we smuggled out of the basement when Dad wasn't home).
Then came the trickiest part: getting Dad to the church building without blowing the surprise! It didn't work out quite as well as we would have hoped - he really just wanted to stay home and watch football! - but he still had no idea how epic it would all be when he walked in!
Surprise! (Jennifer was playing the BYU fight song as he walked in)
And the partying commenced!
After everyone had had a chance to eat and mingle we showed a quick slideshow of pictures of Dad growing up. Followed by a series of pictures of one of Dad's favorite activities: napping! Which went along perfectly with his birthday present. A BYU T-Shirt quilt!
Also several months in the making, Jason would collect large BYU shirts at DI (the second-hand store chain in Utah) and then sneak them to me over the summer. He gave me a large bag when he came out to visit in June, and then a second one in August at the wedding. Mom paid for all the shirts and other supplies, and I put it together. I'd never made one before, so I just kind of made it up as I went along after finding a couple of tutorials online. But I think it turned out amazing! It's also super luxurious, backed with some BYU themed fleece we found at an online retailer. I think he loves it, don't you?
John and I had to leave a little early to get little boys to bed, but the rest of the family had lots of help from our wonderful friends who came to celebrate cleaning up and getting the cars loaded. When everyone got home we cleaned up and spent the rest of the evening together reading memories of Dad that we had all written down and laughing and being together. It was the perfect way to end the day.
All in all, a HUGE success! Whew! But maybe next year, we'll just do dinner, mmmkay? ;) Happy 50th Daddy!
