Happy Birthday, M.!

At the very end of January, we rolled out the red carpet for our bestest, best-ever, bestie, besterly, bestness, bestive, best Papa. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, M.! M. always puts himself last. Really, I'm not sure he even ranks himself that high, placing all others ahead of himself. In a word, he's selfless. And no celebration could ever come close to sufficiently proclaiming how much we love him every day of the year.

We kick-started M.'s birthday *week* with a Saturday date (no kids!), enjoying dinner at a neighborhood restaurant, Jackson 20 and slowly ambling over to the Fontaine Caffe & Creperie for dessert wine and crepes. And I can't leave out the romantic trip to Wal-Mart for a jug of soap and a bottle of Tilex. A movie was our other option, but we decided we were unlikely to stay awake for an entire film (SAD, I know!). 

The festivities continued the next day when Uncle R. joined us for dinner and dessert. We filled up on Vietnamese food at the Viet House and returned home for a cupcake jubilee and card-opening cermony (Uncle R. topped all gift-givers by treating M. to Fall '12 Boston Red Sox/Baltimore Orioles tix). 

The party wasn't over yet. The next day, I braved some Old Town birthday shopping with both girls in tow. I can run an errand or two with these ladies, but carefully shopping for our dear M.? We could do it. We had to do it. And so that night, we polished off some more cupcakes and treated Papa to the gifts we found - with very special thanks to a seriously helpful sales associate and two seriously cooperative girls - for him.

Finally, the big day arrived. We kept things simple, making one of M.'s favorite dinners and finishing off what remained of the cupcakes. And that night concluded our four-day celebration of our dear M.'s birthday. Happy Birthday, M.! We love celebrating you - for whatever reason - and thank you for everything you do, every day, all the time.