It's a Surprise!

On Saturday, we headed off to my parents' house for a little birthday luncheon.  A light lunch with my family, including my brother and his girlfriend Kris.  The sweetest part was the traditional pink iced angel food cake.  My grandma made that same cake for birthdays when she was with us.  It is so special that my mom makes it for us.  Even more special was having my two best gifts ever help me blow out the 4 candles.

After the lunch we went to the local mega mall (Woodfield), located in the same town as my parents, per my request to do some back to school clothes shopping for the kids.

Little did I know that upon our return home, tons and tons of my friends and family would be packed into the dining room and kitchen to yell "SURPRISE!"

After the minor heart palpitations, I proceed to go around hugging everyone in the room.

EVERYONE.

I start talking to my friends and learned that Jason had put a LOT of planning into this!  And that family and friends (real true blue and lovely friends) had put a lot of work in behind the scenes too.  People such as for example: Hannah...

I saw this list of directions for everyone.  They all pitched in and did so much for me.

And Jason's main missions (and all the minor ones too) were accomplished.  1- to show me (again) how much he loves me and 2- to show me how many of my friends truly love me.  I wish I had pics of everyone there, but I don't.  But here are some:

       

People seemed to have a good time.  I just wish I could have talked to everyone more.

The food was catered by an Iraqi couple that we met this summer.  Yummy Middle Eastern food.  The cake was my favorite: Tres Leches Cake and decorated so beautifully.  And yes this one has FORTY candles!  Friends Patrick and Christy brought a large bouquet of YELLOW roses (my favorite color).  Jason had arranged baby sitters too, so people were able to relax more and the kids had fun.

It was so wonderful to see SO MANY friends from so many areas of my life.  And it was so neat to see people meeting each other for the first time and really getting along.

And I really can't believe how well Jason pulled this off.  He really worked hard on all the planning.  I really felt loved that day!

He also thought hard on a present (as if this wasn't enough).  It was kind of unexpected because I hadn't talked about it for a while, but he got me a guitar!  (no, I don't know how to play, but I did take lessons as a kid and would love to learn how to play enough to be able to sing songs around a campfire or just within a small group).

I couldn't have asked for a better party or a better group of friends/family/husband!

Today we are both exhausted!  We went to a wedding Sunday evening and still have a lot of cleaning up to do.

Tomorrow: pics from the wedding...