Chad's 27th birthday + the garage make over!

Our man is 27! How is that possible? We are turning into a bunch of oldies over here and I freakin' love it. Who knew that aging could be so much fun?

So on his big day, I felt really bad that the kiddos and I hadn't gotten him one out of the only two gifts he really wanted, a new hockey stick. I was completely off when budgeting for that thing - who knew they were so expensive? I thought a good $50 would be good, but turns out they're more like $150. Anyhoo, the night before I told him that we were so sorry, but the stick wasn't going to happen. He totally figured, but I still felt bad! He always pulls off these super awesome celebrations/gifts for me, and what do I do for him every year? Try to smoothly pull over some haphazard, supposed-to-appear-as-if-I-had-been-planning-for-a-long-time type presents while lamely blaming it on how busy I was with childcare duties. Anyway! On the morning of his birthday, I got to thinkin'. We had just finished doing some cool things to the backyard that were all on "his list" - you know how each person has their own priorities of TO DO's in their home? Their own lists? Chad's usually pertain to the outside and mine to the inside. Chad = yard. Nicole = master bedroom and family room at the moment. Anyway, I knew that after executing a few of his wish list items in the backyard, he wouldn't want to allocate anymore time towards things that are only on his list. You know? 

Well gosh dangit, on his birthday morning I didn't want to do another lame gift year, so I decided to go ahead and get him something that he would have a hard time purchasing for himself before checking off one of the items on "my list." The kids and I did a little bit of research, and found that dry wall was affordable as heck! So to Home Depot we went where I special ordered 2 dry wall boards to be picked up later so that he could complete the left side of the garage, just to get our sea legs on before going for the whole thing. Well, after leaving the Depot for more birthday errands, I started to think about how if we only did one side of the garage, that would leave the other side on "his list" - something he wouldn't want to go for until we had done something else on my list. What was the point of a half way gifted birthday present/half way checked off "Chad's list" gift? So back to the Depot I went where I ordered 4 more boards to finish the whole garage out. 

Thank the freakin' goodness of the world that my mom just so happened to be in the area, because once we got home, I realized that there was no humanly way to get those things from the top of my car into the darn house without some help. Mother Marilyn helped me get them in, then watched the kids while I ran to the store to get the German chocolate cake frosting (which apparently has been discontinued? Oh well, it was fun making from scratch :). I zoomed home, then got to bakin' the cake and setting up the dry wall and the other gift he really wanted, a cornhole set.

For some odd reason, I wasn't thinking about how if Chad wasn't in the mood for some crazy large project such as dry walling the entire garage, then we were going to have to store dry wall somewhere in the house. I was just in it for the shock value! "Hey babe, look how cool we are! We got you dry wall! Bet you would never have thought of that, eh? Eh?!!!" After he proclaimed that he was not going to awkwardly step over a pile of dry wall for the next couple of weeks/months, we decided to go for it the next night. The threat of Snow pooping on the sheets was also a nice form of motivation as well haha!

So anyway, on his big day after getting home from work, we did presents, then went out to dinner, then returned to have a few drinks with Todd and his woman, Nichole. It was a great night!!!!

Now for a few garage make over pics!

^^^One of the things we didn't like about the garage were the horribly awkwardly hung cabinets. They were just up there on the walls willy nilly! There was no rhyme or reason, causing our storage to be without rhyme or reason. We really hadn't intended to turn the dry wall project into a "let's do the ENTIRE garage" project, but I'm so glad that it did! I texted Chad that while we were at it, why don't we just pull off the ugly cabinets, paint them, then hang them up in a more aesthetically pleasing way along one wall for lots of this-makes-sense storage. Suuuuuuuper happy we did that.