It truly is the thought that counts...

Since it was my Dad's birthday I needed to get him a gift. He's kind of this meticulous gardener guy; the kind where you're not allowed to step on the grass or pick any one of the three billion-trillion flowers blooming around his property, but he can leave an empty can of beer tossed casually towards the shrubbery. This tells me that he doesn't mind aluminum, which is a metal, which means he would totally love a giant metal chicken.

But ever since The Bloggess opened the world to metal animal yard art chickens have been popping up everywhere. And it's almost like Swatch Watches, where they were cool because no one had any and then suddenly everyone did and before you knew it you were showing off your new Swatch and the cool kids were turning up their noses saying those were so last week. So, I needed something better than a giant chicken. And since my dad is from Australia..... you see where this is going, right? .... It only made sense to get him a 6' metal kangaroo for his yard!

Except there are no metal kangaroos anywhere.

It's like they've been banned from the world of yard art. And I don't understand why. Because everyone knows that the only reason Skippy peanut butter has made it big in commerce is because they've been riding on the coat tails of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. People love Skippy peanut butter, therefore, people surely love kangaroos.

You don't see Lassie selling any sandwich spread, do you?

Anyway. With the birthday deadline looming and no mammoth scrap metal roo to put in my dad's yard I went with option number 2.

BALLS!

Not just any balls. Golf balls. Because he likes to golf. A lot. But not just any golf balls. We wanted him to remember these...

And so my sister, my daughter who likes hair in her face, and my sister's very serious daughter set to work....

Even Cletus the Used to be Fetus was put to work. Except he had no idea what we were doing and just opted to eat the Sharpie.

My sister's youngest boy was there, too, but he basically just jumped off living room furniture. Because that boy never stops moving ever.

My Dad has a lot of balls.

But we wanted these to be balls that when he used them he would see the love from his offspring and remember the fond memories that come from his various nicknames. (Bunker, Aussie, Wild Bill, etc.)

We took our task very seriously because we wanted to make sure we got things right.

Sometimes I'm amazed we actually have children of our own. It's like, who was the idiot who decided to give kids to US?!

Then I remembered that I needed a birthday card except I didn't have any birthday cards just laying around the house. However, as luck would have it, I did happen to have this holiday card and somehow, it just seemed to work, you know?