I haven't posted in a while; I have been busy planning a surprise 70th birthday party for my mom. The picture on the left is of all the grandkids minus Kelsey and my nephew Conor because they were with grandma when the photo was taken. The two girls in the middle are my nieces. Yet another example of Ryan acting silly and ruining a perfectly good picture. This party was not an easy feat considering my mom lives with me. The party was at my house so we were forced to be creative to cover up all of our suspicious behavior. Namely the clean house, that should have been her first clue that something was not right. I told her Sam was having her soccer team over so she would think nothing of the clean house. My sister rolled into town with her family on Friday night. Everyone was gathered in the living room talking. I needed an excuse to get out of the house to get to my friends house to do some cooking at 10:00 pm. I went in my room and called my friend and asked her to call me on my house phone so I could say Dave called and wants me to come up to his soccer game to meet some of our friends. I was standing in the kitchen with an ice cold jar of miracle whip under my sweatshirt waiting for my phone to ring. She couldn't find my house number so it took her a while to call. I snuck out with the Miracle Whip and all was well. I was so tired on Saturday from staying up so late on Friday cooking. I didn't think 6:30 pm would ever get here. I asked my mom to take Kelsey to her 6:00 soccer game. I told her Ryan had a game and had Ryan get dressed in his soccer uniform and he and Dave left to go buy the soda and beer. This was actually the first week that Ryan had all the pieces to his uniform and he didn't even have a game. I told her Shannon had a cheerleading thing to go to and that is why she needed to take Kelsey for me. I haven't lied to her this much since high school. My sister said "how are we going to get her to change clothes, she will be really embarrassed if she is in sweat pants." She decided to tell her that they were going to dinner after the soccer game. Before she left we were all trying to get her to change clothes without being obvious, or at the very least to put a bra on. I told her she may want to put a bra on because it is always really cold at the soccer place. Erin works there and said "it's really not cold in there anymore, it's actually fine." Thanks Erin, that was helpful. Somehow we were successful in getting her to put a bra on despite Erin's help. Ryan asked "are we going to yell SURPRISE!!" I said probably, he said "umm have you thought about heart attacks?" You can tell from the picture that she was very surprised, we all had a good time.

I stayed up until 2:30 AM. I am way too old to have two late nights in a row. Shannon had a basketball game this afternoon, the sound of the basketball hitting the floor and the loud buzzer is just what I needed for my slight hangover!!!