How to pull off a Surprise Party

As you may know, I threw a surprise 60th birthday party for my momma yesterday.
After narrowly avoiding a heart attack and total meltdown and having my husband tell me to get my ever loving shit together, it worked (some-what) and the party went off without a hitch.
Here are the steps (in case you too would like a panic party of 1 in the near future)

1) Don't even bother thinking about the party until after you have sent out the invites and realize you have 40 people coming to your house that you have to "hide."

2) Realize you have one week to order food, make a slide-show, buy all the decorations and booze.

3) Panic.

4) Check the weather every four  minutes for an entire week and watch as the weather goes from a total wash-out to hot and sunny and back 1 million times.

5) Panic.

6) Finish the slide show the day before the party only to realize your DVD player doesn't work correctly.

7) Panic and yell at your husband.

8) Set the pick-up time for all the food/beverages/and decorations for four hours before the party is set to start.

9) Beg your husband's friend to come over with his mosquito ammunition and spray your yard to ensure mosquitos don't ruin the mood

10) Leave him on his own while you take two vehicles to pick up 60 balloons, a cake the size of a football field, two Jewel carts of booze, and a bunch of appetizers

11) Watch the Party City employees panic to blow up balloons. See your order in the corner with 2 flat balloons, no streamers, no weights, and no bags. Even though you ordered all that.

12) Get impatient with the skinny girl working the register as she diligently ties all the balloons to the weights.

13) Force your husband to take round 1 of the balloons to the car. Then watch the biggest, most expensive balloon, float away and get stuck in a tree

14) Make your husband climb the tree and retrieve the rogue balloon.

15) Narrowly escape the crazy parking lot filled with mini-vans, none of which are watching where the Hell they are going.

16) Drive like you have a newborn in the car so the cake doesn't slide around.

17) Blindly make turns because your entire car is filled with balloons

18) Watch four balloons pop immediately after you take them out of the car.

19) Untie the mess of streamers for 20 minutes while you are sweating and cursing the streamer gods.

20) Scream at your dogs to shut the Hell up for five fucking seconds so you can panic in peace.

21) Have your extended family show up two hours early and then not really help because you are waiting on your absent-minded brother to show up with the ice. Which he does, 5 minutes before your mom arrives.

22) Have no one else show up until 7 minutes before your mom is set to arrive and scream at everyone to "pick up the pace" as they are running down the road in cute heels.

23) Panic. A lot.

24) Try to remember what your "lie" was to get your mom inside.

25) Watch a baby meltdown as your parents pull in the driveway

26) Shove the mom and baby outside and tell them to "lock it up"

27) Panic a lot and have to poop all of a sudden

28) Stumble over your lies to your mom as she starts to get skeptical of your plans.

29) Have her figure out what is going on seconds before she steps into the Surprise

30) Watch her tear up seeing her friends and family

31) Drink your ass off because you pulled it off (kinda) and everything ran (somewhat) smoothly

32) Hear the 10th balloon explode from the heat and cheers your mom. She is an awesome lady and you would do anything for her.

All in all, it was an awesome day. It didn't rain. The weather was perfect. My mom wasn't mad and there weren't any major issues.  We hired a singer to do 60's and 70's classic rock music and it was fabulous. He sang Happy Birthday, tons of people were in the pool, and the food was delicious!

Here are some photos from the day.

And then things got weird

Three other things on the horizon.

1) The winner of the Rafflecopter giveaway is Lindsay W.  Lindsay, you will be getting your giftcard this week! Thanks to everyone that entered! It was a great turn out!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

2) My June Sponsor giveaway starts this Wednesday and ends Friday! It's a Zappos.com giveaway and is a huge thanks for my sponsors!
PS- June sponsors, I still have a few spotlights that will happen through the end of the month....don't fret!
July Sponsors....are you interested? You will have a chance to secure your spot this week.
Details to follow!!

3) You will want to check back tomorrow for the 90 Day Bikini Challenge results.
It's me in a bikini. It's not that impressive but at least you get some eye candy.

How was your weekend? Do anything exciting? Tell me all about it!