Happy, Happy Birthday!

Yesterday we BEAUTIFULLY executed a surprise birthday party for my mother-in-law, Peggy. She happens to be not only my husband's mom, but one of my best friends, and I am truly thankful that God gave me not only an awesome husband but an AWESOME family to marry into. We (Sara, my sister-in-law) and I tossed ideas around for a couple of weeks while they were visiting Norway - and decided we'd have this planned by the time they returned. They got back on Tuesday and we appeared very non-chalant about Peggy's birthday - it was Wednesday. We had lunch and supper with her, there might have been a piece of cake, we sang to her, nothing OVERLY exciting.

On the 4th we "lumped" her birthday in with the celebrations - there was, again, a cake - which we ended up getting into before anybody sang or celebrated . . . All of this in an attempt to, no, not break her spirit, but throw her off our trail in HOPES of surprising her. Well, you tell me - does she look surprised to you??

Tom did a WONDERFUL job of making her think it was a nice evening for the two of them. They went on what was SUPPOSED to be a romantic carriage ride (it was SUPER hot and lucky for them I had only booked them on a 20 minute ride instead of the 40 minute one!) - and then they brought her into the restaurant where we had arrived during their ride. She was a LITTLE confused at first - we did SO enjoy our surprise. :)

They brought a beautiful truffle plate out (in lieu of cake) when we were finished eating, and Peggy graciously shared it with all of us. (Truth be told, I would have scarfed the WHOLE thing down myself if it had been MY birthday party!)

Then we headed outside for FIREWORKS. We told her that we'd gone ALL out in planning this party but I'm pretty sure she wasn't fooled. Perhaps it was the droves of people that joined us out on the Ritz Carlton's pool area to watch "her" firework show, as if they had been notified of it ahead of time??Oh and of course, I needed to play around with silouettes just a LEETLE bit . . . it was a beautiful fountain!

And then Peggy kindly took this of Matthew and I in front of the same fountain. :) I believe we were ALSO going for a romantic-type theme?? :) Happy Birthday Peggy, we love you and I hope last night was really special for ya!