Happy Birthday Jose!!

January 18th is a great day.  Kate couldn't sleep the night before because she couldn't decide what we'd make in the morning for breakfast for Joe for his birthday.  She came down at 11:54pm while I was preparing a few of Joe's favorite things, and was just giddy.  "Wake me up in the morning so we can surprise Dad!"   We had so much fun planning and surprising little things to make his birthday a great one.  This has been a crazy time at work for Joe, so I asked him how we could celebrate best.  He asked if at all possible, I could make Mom's rolled tacos for his birthday dinner.  Of course!  I went to the store to get all of the ingredients, only to find that the grocery stores don't sell corn tortillas down here!  What?!!!!  Thankfully, I started this process a couple days for his birthday!  I went on a hunt.  Found a "Tortilla Factory" that I could special order them and the kids and I went on yet another adventure.  It was a success!  Homemade corn tortillas!  YUM!!!!  

Just don't ask me about how after our success story, I got stuck trying to get out of the parking lot, because I didn't know I was supposed to have purchased a ticket and there were cars lining up behind me and Kate was freaking out...  We survived!

Joe woke up to Swedish pancakes and then after he left to go to work, the kids and I went to work making cookies and a big banner for him.  We thought it'd be fun to leave them in his office for him while he was out to lunch.  After getting through yet another dramatic parking incident, and trying 4 different floors in his building-- we found it!  And we also found Joe sitting at his desk!  Too busy for lunch!  We gave him hugs and hung our banner up and let him get back to his phone call.  

 The rest of the day we wrapped presents and I went to work on the rolled taco feast.  We were all SOOOO excited to sit down and eat!!

 Thanks Mom, for this DELISH tradition.  It tasted just like home!!!

 I have loved every single birthday with you!

 

 Jake saw these hats in the store and got so excited thinking that the boys could all match.  He was determined that this would be the perfect gift for his dad.  I didn't have the heart to tell him that I could only find smalls and mediums, and Dad had a bigger head than that!  So we got the smalls for the boys and the medium for Joe :)  Hopefully I'll be able to go to another store and find 

a bigger size!!!

 Kate picked out the perfect wallet for him and even helped him organize it!  

 Luke surprised his Dad by strutting around the house yelling "SURPRISE!"  and then doing a little dance, over and over again.  We didn't know he could say that!  Let alone all of the other words that are finally starting to come out of his cute, little mouth.  

"Chocolate Death" for dessert (forever grateful for Alyson Whitaker giving me this recipe).  Yes, those are 3 mini bundt cakes stacked on top of each other.  I've given up trying to do a normal size bundt in my oven.  Never turns out.  But the little ones do!  They cook more evenly.  So, we stuffed ourselves silly and had a lot of fun celebrating our favorite person!  

What a wonderful day!