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by Ashley

Father’s Day is coming up! T-minus (less than) 1 week!

Fathers never seem to get the same appreciation mothers do. I know of several comedy sketches about this discrepancy. But regardless of rhyme or reason, Father’s Day doesn’t seem to have the same costs associated with it that Mother’s Day might. I think (for myself, personally), I have no problem simply sending a nice card to the special Dads in our lives, whereas I always feel like Moms deserve a special gift. Why is this?

My family, specifically, also doesn’t have as many Dads in it as Moms.

By comparison, between the husband and myself, we have 2 Moms and 3 Grandmas/Nanas. But between the two of us we only have 1 Dad, 1 StepDad, and no living Grandpas. This alone dramatically reduces the financial impact of Father’s Day.

But, by and away, the most special “Father” in my life is my husband – father to our children. And I want to do something special for him. But, being on a budget, it needs to be cheap!

So here’s what I came up with….

Last year (pre-budget) I paid for my husband to have professional golf lessons and gave him this fun framed photo of our girls (barely 11 months at the time)

At first, I thought I would recreate this photo session with our (now) 23-month-olds! But a quick search for the letters in some craft boxes left me empty handed. I know they’re somewhere, but I lacked the time and energy to search more thoroughly (we have several craft boxes and they may have even ended up in the attic). Instead, I thought it might be fun to do a similar picture using different props.

I whipped up some homemade signs that said: We (heart) Dad!

My plan is to have them printed and put back into this same frame – costing only the amount of the prints (about 10 cents each = 30 cents total)! I just did the photo shoot this weekend so I don’t have them printed yet but here are a couple fun “outtake” photos:

You get the idea. Have I ever mentioned how challenging it is to work with toddlers as the photo subjects? ; )

And, although this would still be a loving and heart-felt gift on its own, I felt like I needed something else. I did a little googling and decided on a funny shirt. Husband loves to laze around in t-shirts on his days off and he’s always in need of t-shirts since his often become converted into “work shirts” after awhile (and then become destroyed).

So….don’t be offended(!!), I just thought this was a funny shirt that husband might appreciate

Have I ever told you guys the story about how we found out we were having twins (we didn’t find out until 20 weeks into the pregnancy)? Shock of a lifetime! Ha! I’ll have to share it sometime!

At any rate, the shirt only cost $12. With shipping it was $15. Add that to the 30 cents for printing the photos and I think that’s a pretty reasonably priced Father’s Day gift. One part sweet/sentimental and one part funny/practical.

What are you doing for Father’s Day? Any other good gift ideas?