Mom's Surprise Birthday Party

Surprise parties are THE best!!  The insane amount of planning and organizing (and lying) that goes into it can be daunting, but the end result is SO much fun!! After much debate and discussion, we ultimately decided to attempt a double surprise party weekend for Mom.  Our first surprise involved just our immediate family.  McKinley invited Mom and Dad over for a game night with him and his roommate, JK.  This is a fairly common occurrence so certainly no red flags there.  What Mom didn't know is that Jordan and his crew along with Chris and I would be hiding in the kitchen waiting to jump out and surprise her upon arrival.  Worked like a charm!

Mom was no doubt surprised...especially since she had called me just a few minutes before while I casually pretended to be enjoying a relaxing weekend at our apartment in NY.  I'm good, friends! Put me on the surprise squad ANY day! :)  That Saturday afternoon all the siblings just hung out and entertained the kids.  I worked with Brinley and Landon on being quiet as a mouse when we surprised Grandma and Grandpa.  They did awesome while we waited to spring the surprise!

It was a lot of fun to play games and just hang out that night.  We told Mom we were planning to go to church with her and take her out for a family lunch the next day.  Surprisingly, she didn't ask a ton of questions.  We all thought we were in the clear.  She didn't suspect a thing.

And we were right!!  Church was great.  Mom was extremely happy to have us all there together - a rarity these days!  We got some fun family shots outside the church before the rain began.  At that point, we headed over to Old Hickory for our second surprise.

The hostess group was a little lacking on the subtleties and nearly gave us away, but the New Yorker in me took over and just barged through to the banquet room.  Mom said she thought we might have invited her sister to join us, but she never expected to see a whole room full of family and friends.  Since I was in the group that arrived with her, I didn't get a look at her facial expression.  The pictures say it all though.  Mom was absolutely thrilled to be able to visit with so many wonderful people for the afternoon.  We were all relieved we managed to pull it off - a feat we had doubts about from the beginning!

Have you ever planned a surprise party?  How did it go? 

Andrea :)