Dirty Thirty!

After our Rockstar celebration of Lee's 30th on Saturday night, we then got 'down & dirty' on Sunday with family and friends for a Dirty Thirty birthday party for Lee. I only wish I was this creative and must admit, I stole some ideas from another blog I happen to run across when searching for ideas for a 30th birthday party.

We started out the night with dirt colored M&Ms, peanuts in a shell, and chocolate covered peanuts. Yum!

I loved these personalized M&Ms with "Happy 30th" and Lee's face printed on them. You can get these at http://www.mymms.com/. They were a hit!

My brownies were labled 'dirt clods' and they were actually almost a disaster. In the middle of baking, our electricity went out (due to yet another thunderstorm, imagine that?) and so I left the brownies in the oven, hoping there would be enough heat trapped inside to finish baking them. The did finish, for the most part, enough to be very soft and gooey, but did not cut up very well. So, they actually look like clods of dirt...perfect!

I preferred the 'not-as-muddy' muddy water after the night before! 

The kids table..."Hi Grandad"!

The guests enjoying their dinner on our back deck. The sun actually came out right before the party and then the rain came back after the party was over. That's great timing, I would say! 

Boys will be boys!

Jackson, Jacob, & Colby

Virginia enjoying the party from her bouncy chair!

Getting "down & dirty with lee"...I printed off Lee's funny facebook statuses from the past few years and we passed them around and took turns reading them...that boy is hilarious!

Ella gave Daddy some sunglasses for his birthday, because everybody needs glasses! And she was tired of giving him pretend ones all the time!

Virginia being silly in Nannie's lap!

A new chainsaw from my Mom and Dad! Hopefully we won't have any more trees down soon, but if we do, he is prepared now!

My gift to Lee was a piece of land that I was able to buy from our neighbors to extend our lot a little bit! It's something that our neighbor has been trying to get us to do for a few years, because it actually didn't connect to their yard, but it did to ours. They were tired of mowing it and Lee wanted it! For years though, I have said, No...that is wasn't worth it and wouldn't really do anything for us, we didn't have the money, blah, blah, blah. All a cover up!

I was pretty proud of myself that I was able to negotiate a price, handle the loan, and close on this land almost a month before his birthday and all by myself! Lee had no idea that any of this was happening and I had a lot of people in on this to help me keep this secret, including our loan officer and friend, Jocelyn who kept all papers at the bank and worked around my schedule to get it done; our neighbors (the sellers) knew to only call me at work, and our insurance agent and friend made sure that no documents were mailed to our house just yet. It was great and couldn't have worked out any better!

At this 'Dirty Thirty' party, I went along with the 'dirt' theme to present this gift to him. I put the deed to the land in a ziploc bag and buried in a box of dirt from the land. I included a little kid shovel for him to uncover the deed and here are his reactions as he is going through this...

First there was a WTH kind of look (with the shovel and dirt), then a "What in the world have you done?" look and then "excitement"! It was great and was as much of a gift to me to see him so excited over it!  

My mom made a Dirt Cake, complete with gummi worms to go along with the theme! It was delicious!

Ready to blow out the candles...

Lee trying to keep the "vultures" away with their grubby hands!

Yes, that is a trowel (a new, clean one) to serve the cake. There's one vulture in a pink shirt that Daddy won't deny!

Happy 30th Birthday, Lee! Don't worry about planning anything for my 30th, because it isn't going to happen anyway. Long live the age of 29!