Dad, Daddy-o, DaDa

*Dad = 10 year old, cool guy way of acknowledging dad.
*Daddy-o = 4 year olds term of endearment for her Dad, which started when she was super little.
*Dada = 1 year old way of saying Daddy, which is more of a voice influx and still working on the correct letter sound.

Since Daddy was working, as usual, on Father's Day, we were waiting till he got home at 5:00 to celebrate with him. The plan was to have everything ready and on the table so when he walked in the door we could give him his Father's Day gifts and crafts and then have dinner. I got a call from Dale at 3:30 saying that he was on his way home early. That was awesome, but really sent us here at home into a tail spin to get everything done. Not only was he off early, he was also already 30 mins into his hour commute. That gave us 30 short minutes to get the cupcakes frosted, the table set and gifts laid out, the dishwasher loaded and unloaded, and the living room picked up and vacuumed (the vacuuming had to wait, there wasn't enough time). We ended up finishing with about 1 minute to spare.

The kids sat on the arm of the couch to greet daddy the minute he walked in the door. They were so excited to share their cards, gifts, and crafts with him. You would have thought it was Christmas with all the excitment from the kids. Aiden even attempted to say Happy Father's Day in his own way. He is really mimicing sounds and usually copies the influx in voice even if he doesn't get the sounds right. So cute!

The card given by Andrew said, "Dad, here's something for you to wear on Father's Day--" I AM THE BOSS! (You can return it to Mom tomorrow!)

So we made Dad wear this huge, bright, orange tag for the rest of the night. Even though Mom and Dad are both the boss around here, it is a joke that Daddy always uses when he doesn't want to be the one to make the decisions around here... "go ask your Mom, she is the boss."

With all the gifts, cards, crafts, dinner, cupcakes, and family movie, we were able to show Dad/Daddy-o/Dada in a small way how much he really means to us. For the greatest gift is the fact that he is such an awesome dad, not just on Father's Day, but EVERY day!!!