Mom turns 50!!!!!!

So my mom turned 50 on Friday (1/6). For months I have been secretly planning a surprise birthday party in my head and had contacted some folks to help me. But I didn't start putting it all together until after Christmas. I had a little over 2 weeks and feared I wasn't going to have enough time to make it happen.  But I rounded up some awesome family and friends to help me and we successfully pulled it off. We had the party on Saturday and it went so well. Mom had absolutely NO IDEA!

We planned the party for 6pm, but I had everyone arrive a little early. I had invited mom to our house and told her I was going to cook a birthday dinner for her. But then called and asked her to stop by the church to pick up some ice so we could make ice cream. I told them to be at our house around 6:30 or 7 - any later and I feared she would get suspicious.  I knew she would want to get there earlier to see Kelsie before she went to bed so I had to make an excuse for why I was planning it for later. She asked if they could just come at 6 but I told her no, that we had stuff to do around the house and that it would be later before I could get everything ready.  They are often late anyway, and it takes an hour to get to our house, so I thought if I said 6:30 or 7, that they would really leave around 6:00. Well mom was apparently a little anxious to get to our house at 6:30 and was so frustrated with Dad, Valerie and Drew for dragging around and making them late.  Valerie and Drew were at the church helping us get the party put together but went back to mom and dad's around 5:30, the time that mom thought they should be leaving to come to our house.. Normally, they would ride with mom and dad to our house so we wanted to make things seem as normal as possible to keep mom from suspecting anything. But when they got there, they said Drew had to take a quick shower before they could leave...but he purposefully made the quick shower a long shower to stall and keep mom from trying to leave before 6. Well, mom was apparently so adamant that she should go ahead and go pick up the ice at the church that she tried to leave the house on her own, before 6, which would have totally ruined the surprise.  Dad said he held her off as long as he could, but they eventually left together at 6:00 on the way to the church, but without Valerie and Drew since he was still in the shower.  (Sadly, they missed the surprise entrance but still got there before mom got inside.) But all in all, it worked out great and we pulled off the greatest surprise ever (in the history of our family anyway!) :) We had such a great time and it will be a memory I will keep forever! LOVE YOU MOM!!!!!!!

 

The "Dixie Hicks" crashed the party...it was HILARIOUS!