Birthday, Birthday, Birthday!!!!

Friday morning, I was teetering on the edge of Too Much Birthday.  You've read the Berenstein Bear book about that, right? Where Sister Bear ends up crying at her own party because it's just.too.much.  But by Friday night, I was singing a different tune.

Let's start at the beginning, shall we? Weeks ago, Kent tried to plan a surprise get together for me, but our April calendar is completely out of control so he added "Laura's Birthday Surprise" to the calendar for Friday, April 19 at 3:00 so that I wouldn't schedule anything else at that time.  Of course, I had to get it out of him what he had planned which made us come thisclose to canceling the whole thing because I wanted to tweak the plans a little bit. He wanted it all to be a surprise, I wanted to change a few of the things he had planned  to include more people which ultimately changed the whole thing.  In the end, we decided to reserve the room at Chips restaurant and 14 of us went out for dinner to celebrate, then back home to keep the party going.

It was perfect.  The whole entire night was so absolutely perfect that I could cry.  The plans that Kent made, the generosity of neighbors who were not only willing to get babysitters for their children on a Friday  night to celebrate with me, but also brought thoughtful gifts, and the creativity of my mom were awesome.  Wanna see?

My mom skillfully left out pictures from my chubbier years.  Moms are the best.  

My mom (who was watching the kids with my dad that night) snuck over here with Kylee while we were at Chip's and she decorated the house.  It was amazing.  My friends raved! In addition to all the things above, she had also left some fun trivia printouts of things from 1983.  Like who was famous, what was trendy, how much things cost...we had a BLAST reading and guessing! Everyone had so much fun looking at pictures of me when I was younger (and apparently the neighborhood consensus is that Kael looks exactly like I did when I was younger, who knew?).  How my mom even found gifts that went with the pink/black theme is beyond me.  I know how precious her time is and I know how much time it takes to put together things like this! So, I thought I'd share her ideas in case you have a special party coming up you need some fun ideas for.

Here's what was included in the "Turning 30..." basket

is "extra" special.  Pink Extra gum.

is your time to shine. Candle.

is no "laughing" matter. Laughing cow cheese.

blows. Bubbles.

is a ball. Pink baseball

is fun. Funfetti frosting

is sweet. Starbursts candy.

sucks. Giant sucker

rocks. Pop rocks candy

is rough. Sparkly pink nail file

is nuts. Roasted cashews

is a piece of cake. Funfetti cake mix.

is crazy. Pink princess crazy straws.

We ended the evening with a hilarious game of guys vs. girls in Catch Phrase, then everyone headed home around 2:00.  I know!!!! We were party animals!

A huge, HUGE thank you to everyone who helped to make my birthday so memorable.  I love you guys!!