J's Big Birthday Bash

Happy Birthday to my Amazing Wonderful Delightful Supportive Entertaining Creative husband of 7 years, J. (going on 8 years in November, but we have technically been a couple for 13 years.)

I got a new job.  I work nights.  I am either asleep or at work.  As such I feel like I do not have time for extra curricular activities as I used to do such as Baking, Cooking, Cleaning, Civil War re-enacting, Sewing, Victorian era dancing, Aikido Martial Arts, Jogging, Exercise, Shutterfly, Blogging, Reading, Pinterest, and Facebook.  Yes, my beloved pinterest and facebook followers, my new night job is to blame for the reason that you no longer see my Civil War ball gowns, brownies, or daily Grumpy Cat re-posts.  I miss my daily Grumpy Cat so much.  

To plan for this I used my precious Saturdays to go shopping for utensils, decorations, and print off recipes.  I put all my dry ingredients in bags so baking time would be easier.  I made frosting a couple of days ahead of time.  I had my brother and sister lined up to come early to help decorate and despite his catastrophic sewage back-up flooding his apartment, my brother bravely came early to help me.  He is a very responsible young man.  I made the games and printed them weeks beforehand.  But even with all my pre-preparation, I still only got 4 hours of sleep in two days.  I am a stress monster.  But in the end I think it came together beautifully.  All we really needed was friends and family and cake and I can do cake.

My sister Chelsea decorated outside and made the Happy Birthday board.  She has way better handwriting then I do.

Happy Birthday Jody.

 My parents came over.  I made J's favorite foods:  Yellow Cake, Peanut Butter Bars with home-made peanut butter, Cake Pops, Applesauce Cupcakes, Meatballs, French Bread, and Pineapple.

 I had a soda float station with all our favorite Soda Pops.  We love Soda Pop and ice cream.  I went with Green because that is J's favorite color.  

 (I got the one bottle of lemonade because I have a lot of friends who do not drink Soda.)

 Cake is not as pretty as I wanted it to be, but at least he got a birthday cake.

 Happy Birthday to the most intelligent, humorous, artistic, kindest person I know and am lucky enough to be married to.  He also has an awesome beard to which many are in awe and envious of.  Respect the beard.  Respect it!

 Our friends and family.

 Tom and Kimberli.

 Scarlett, Colin, Ayla, and Angie.

 My Aunt Lonnie and Uncle Mark.

 Our Aikido Sensei Mike.

 Counting Candy.  I put J's favorite candy in jars and had our guests guess how many was in the jar and take it all away from him.  Jolly Ranchers 40, Lemon-head and friends 300, and Tootsie Rolls 40.

 The Birthday party went from 6 - 8pm.  Afterwards our Civil War boys came and had our monthly Civil War meeting.  Jamin, Caleb, and Mark.

 I love our Civil War re-enactment group.  I could not have asked for better friends.

 And this is what happens when Caleb gets my camera.  Rachel, Kimberli, and Amanda.

 Let's end this blog post with a baby.

 Caleb and Amanda's 3 month old baby boy Hunter.  He is adorable.

Here is one of the games I made for our guests to play.

The Many Near-Deaths of Jody Ehrmantrout

(True or False)

1.          At the tender age of four, a motorcycle fell on him trapping his neck between the handle bars and a dog house, asphyxiating him.  He was clinically dead for 15 minutes until revived at the E.R.

2.          At scout camp he was dumped head first into a rain barrel, and unable to right himself, he drowned (only dead for about 5 minutes this time).

3.          He was attacked by a stray dog and had to have a rabies vaccination.  You know, the old way, where they used a ten inch hypo in the abdomen for a series four extremely painful shots.

4.          In a case of drunken mistaken identity he was punched in the face (breaking his nose in ten places and the bone plate behind it in three) by a stranger at a run with a roll of quarters in his fist outside of a convenience store.

5.          He had his right ear torn almost completely off by a dog (in a second dog attack.).

6.          He was in a severe motorcycle accident (the bike flipped, landed on him and they slid down the road for about 60 feet) crushing his upper palate and imparting a road rash that exposed both of his patella (knee caps), and removed his right nipple.

7.          He got lost in a sudden blizzard during a snowmobile ride with friends and had to spend the night in -20 degree temperatures under a tree.

8.          He slipped on ice while going down the stairs to his basement apartment one night and suffered a severe concussion.

9.          While riding his motorcycle through the school parking lot a car backed into him, breaking three of his ribs.

10.      A bowling ball rolled off of a closet shelf and landed on the top of his head, resulting in yet another concussion.

11.      In a quad runner accident he flipped and crashed through a three inch in diameter tree. Had the tree   been any wider it would most likely have broken his back.

12.      While climbing into a treehouse he fell 15 feet when the ladder broke, landed flat on his back collapsing both lungs.

13.      He walked his bike home with a 2x4 nailed to the bottom of his foot.

14.      He had measles, mumps, chicken pox, and scarlet fever.  (Yes, he was immunized.)

15.      In the fourth grade he ran into a set of play bars on the playground, landed on his back, and collapsed a lung.

16.      He was bitten by a brown recluse spider; on two separate occasions.

They are all true.  I could go on, but I had to stop at one page.

Happy Birthday Jody.  August 22nd, 2014.