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Someone in our house has an impending 40th birthday. Yah....not me, I am not that old yet. I have often complained about how difficult it is to have a birthday on New Year's. Not just for me wanting to plan a special day but for my husband who has to share his day with the New Year's celebration. I know it is not the worst thing that can happen in life. But think of his Mother who was going to have a party on New Year's and went into labor. And yes his Dad is an accountant and loved the tax write-off.

I was very stumped as to what to do. Do I wait until after Christmas or try to plan something before Christmas? I wanted to surprise him with something but wasn't sure what. I went through a lot of possibilities before deciding on having a party at a restaurant with some of his friends.

The harder part was finding a restaurant. I inquired from one of our favorite restaurants which seemed ok until I heard what the minimums were for their private areas. Yikes! I thought about an Italian restaurant that I have been too with some friends. I inquired and determined they had a private room on the 3rd floor that I could have with no minimums. I didn't even have to do a fixed menu. I decided that a Sunday evening would work best. It is the holiday season and a busy time for most.

Now how to get him there. I schemed with my neighbor. The plan was that she would call me on Saturday with a story of how their plans fell through for Sunday, they had a sitter and wondered if we would like to go out to dinner. I casually asked the husband and he said ok. Part one down. On Sunday, my neighbor called me to tell me that her sitter got sick, no she never had a sitter lined up. We had planned on my niece watching all the kids.

The husband and I discussed where we would like to go, he suggested Italian (after he suggested our favorite steakhouse). So I suggested going to this Italian Restaurant. It was close and it was after all a school night.

What I failed to plan was what to say when we got there. So my friend and I went up to the hostess and didn't know what to say. They were going to take us to table 251. I said no we would like to go to the third floor. The hostess said they had a private party and luckily my friend said we are the party. So what does the hostess do, she yells out take them to the third floor. At that point my husband knew something was going on. Yes, he was surprised!

He ended up putting things together. Like the text I received from one of the people saying they could now make it and was it ok as I quickly got out of the message. The babysitter story.

Dinner was really good. We had 8 other couples celebrate with us. One couple could not make it.

Then comes the cake. I picked up the cake on Friday. As I went to put the cake in my car I dropped it. So I quickly picked up the box to get the cake to go back into the correct spot but ended up messing the side of the cake also. And just for the record the cake tasted great.

I brought my camera and forgot about it....so I didn't get one picture. I am very bummed. Happy 40th birthday....early. I love you and hope you had a great celebration!