Father's Day 2010

I am a very lucky girl. I was blessed with a wonderful dad, and my husband is both a great husband and a fantastic father. And by fantastic, I mean I have never had to get up with any of our children during the night. Ever. He's forever playing games with them, reading to them, helping them with their talking (our son has a stutter and has speech therapy exercises to do every day), taking them to footy or basketball or even just to the park for a bit to give me some time out. Like I said, I am blessed.

My beautiful little family

My hubby doesn't like presents. He doesn't like the fact that people feel compelled to buy presents because it's Christmas or Father's Day, or whatever. He would rather people were just nice all year long. And that's a very good point (I would like to have my cake and eat it too. I love presents, and love having an excuse to give presents).

So instead of buying him presents, the last couple of years I've been trying to find cute, fun, meaningful and inexpensive (because I know he'd rather I didn't spend a lot of money) ways to show our appreciation for him. Besides, Hubby is a professional photographer, and all the stuff he'd like for presents would be impossible for me to get without his help! I wouldn't have a clue how to pick out equipment for him, and the thought of trying just scares me to death. Plus, I'm sure he'd have a clue when he noticed a fat chunk missing from our bank account!

Last year, we did a "Heart Attack". It was a favourite service project in my church's youth group when I was growing up. Basically you make a whole bunch of hearts from paper, write on each one something nice about the person you are giving the "Attack" to, then secretly stick them to their front door. We used to also leave a plate of cookies.

On Father's Day last year, I'd planned to get up early and set up our surprise. But my hubby had other ideas, and he got up extra early and drove to his dad's house to surprise him by cooking him pancakes for breakfast. Isn't that sweet? Well, I did it for him while he was gone. You'll have to forgive the crappy pictures, the only ones I got were on my phone! 

I did circles, because it was easier (lazy of me!) and after consulting with the kids, I wrote on each circle something that we love about daddy. Then I plastered them across the wall. He loved it so much he wouldn't let me take it down! It was around March this year that I finally took them down (while he was out) because the kids kept ripping and pulling them off.

 This year, I came across this cute little idea, Rainbow of Love on Love, Actually I LOVE this blog! (I couldn't find the actual post, but once I do I will come back and put the link up for that) I thought it was insanely cute, and easy to do. Unfortunately, the lollies and chocolates didn't last long enough for a photo, so there's an empty bowl in the picture (and of course, hers was better!) but you get the idea!

The message says, "To Our Dearest Daddy, thankyou for being the pot of gold at the end of our rainbow". Then there's a rainbow (but actually it turned out to be only a quarter of a rainbow) of hearts and at the bottom of the rainbow a "pot" that was filled with lollies and then on top gold-wrapped chocolates (like Ferrero Rochers, Rolo's, chocolate coins or any other candy with a gold wrapper) to make our Pot of Gold.

My helpful little boy got up early with me and together we set up daddy's little surprise. He could hardly contain his excitement when we went to wake Brook up for church, and he blurted out "Wait til you see your surprise dad!". And yes, I think it went down well :)