My BIG Surprise

My husband and oldest daughter coordinated a very-surprise party for my BIG 40 birthday. As I posted yesterday, JD and I went out for an afternoon of shopping and we were supposedly heading to Olive Garden for dinner. We took Elijah shopping and were planning on dropping him off at my sister's house while we ate. When I called Deb to let her know that we were on our way, she told me that she had stopped at the church to catch up on a few things and could I bring him there instead so they could go walking. Since she and Elijah often go walking on Wednesday nights, I certainly didn't think a thing about it. While I had been shopping all afternoon, Debs, the kids and a few friends were setting up fellowship hall with a Mexican theme.

There was even a fully-staffed non-alcoholic margarita bar.


Thankfully, my one daughter captured pictures of the crowd waiting to yell, "Surprise!" Elijah fell asleep in his car seat, so I ran up to the door to make sure it wasn't locked while JD lugged in Elijah's whole car seat.

When I pulled the door open, it honestly took a few minutes for it all to register. I was so shocked! People said I looked scared to death. I just remember thinking, "oh, no, Elijah is going to wake up." Then I saw Julia and thought, "how did she get here?" Then, it registered that people were yelling, "surprise and happy birthday." I felt like crying when I saw my friend that we met in Liberia's face. They have 10 children and drove two hours to be there. That was the best!

JD gave a brief speech on the history of why he chose the Mexican theme; it was because we met when he "crashed" my 20th birthday party at a Mexican restaurant. He came accompanying another guest, but we didn't get into all that!


We had yummy, yummy Mexican food, catered from our favorite Mexican restaurant and home-made by friends.

Gabriel had two friends that worked hard all night making margaritas for everyone.

It was so fun to eat and visit with everyone. Its amazing how much fun the kids had also playing and beating each other with baloons.

Elijah slept for about an hour in the party noise leaned against the wall in his car seat! What a good present for his Mommy.

Unfortunately, we forgot to take a picture of my "over the hill" cake. The second cake was a happy sun and flowers.

My kids remembered that I said a few years ago that I wanted my own pinata. So, we had a Mommy pinata. Only about three Mommas hit it until Debra knocked the donkey's head completely off. Too bad JD spent the money stocking it with good Mommy chocolates, because the kids dove in and I'm quite sure that very few Mommys even got a piece.

After hours of party fun, we had a bit of clean up work. Many hands make light work however.

Even the kids chipped in. Here's Tori and Elijah vacuuming their little hearts out, even though it was hours past bed-time.


This really was my best birthday ever. I've never had a surprise party before, in fact, I haven't had a party since that one at the Mexican restaurant 20 years ago. I felt very loved that my family and friends would put that much work into making me feel special!