Papa's Birthday Surprise

It was Papa's birthday this past week, and as Lynn and Nicole were discussing his birthday while we were driving to church a couple weeks ago, Papa said that he'd been thinking, and he thought that he wasn't really using his birthday anymore, so he'd like to give it away to the three little girls he loves.  Didn't take them long to agree that this sounded good, but they weren't quite sure what it entailed.

We decided that we'd make a birthday cake, and get presents for "Happy Papa's Birthday" day.  Elaine got hers via Amazon last week, and is loving her soft blocks. They're just right for an almost 9-month-old who loves to put things in her mouth.



Lynn and Nicole got theirs yesterday, and were pretty surprised to get presents unexpectedly.
Lynn is 6 and got a Breyer horse and rider set.  I used to love Breyer horses when I was a kid, and she's really into a horse phase too.  Something about being able to saddle the horse up, and have the girl ride the horse around (along with some trick dog riding, which I'll get to in a second).  At any rate, it was a success too.


The real success, though, was the gift of "cats and dogs" for Nicole.  We've got an inexpensive set of small cats and dogs that all the grandkids so far have loved, but she especially plays with the cats and dogs whenever she comes over.  After much looking, I found a couple of "tubes of animals" that were pretty close to this set, and added a rubbermaid container from Walmart to hold them.  She opened them up, and just lit up.  Her eyes got wide, and she said, "Papa, you got me cats and dogs!"  A little later, she added, "Papa, I like you!"  High praise from a 4-year-old.  Later on, one of the dogs became "Tricky, the Rodeo Dog," who can ride a horse's back for all of about three seconds.  We've decided the horse doesn't really care for a rodeo dog rider.

Here's the link to the cats and dogs, which are an inexpensive way to guarantee a long-remembered "Papa's birthday."