Surprise! Happy 30th to Me!

For the most part, you can find my birthday weekend on the same weekend as the GA/FLA game and the time change.... as in getting an extra hour of sleep. When I was in college, it also coincided with fall break. It was a win/win/win/win situation and truly one of my favorite times of the year. I already explained my obsession with fall. And this particular weekend encompassed it all. And that was even true for years after I had kids.

But on this particular year, not so much. Let's start with the time change. For the first time, it has really messed up my kids and by 8:30 last night, Chad and I were literally both in bed, feeling like we had been hit by a Mack truck. It started with an early wake up call because the kids didn't get the memo about an extra hour of sleep, so by 9am we had already cleaned the whole house and I had made some baby food. So Chad went to mow the yard- before church- naturally. The kids' stomachs were all whacked out too-- they were literally hungry all day and thought they were being starved... until dinner time, when they were no longer hungry. I guess their stomach was off-duty by that point?! They were so tired by the time we made it home for naps that 2 of the 3 didn't nap and Jack napped so long that I had to wake him up and he woke up a grumpy ole poot. And to top it off, the baby slept from 6pm last night til 7:30 this morning. Today has been a little better, but barely. And I won't even mention the Dawgs and the GA/FLA game- we came out with the W, barely, which was just all kinds of wrong. AND somehow, it was all messed up enough that my birthday actually fell the weekend before. Which turned out to be the silver lining... and it was the reason I found myself standing in the middle of a pizza place surrounded by about 30 of my friends and family on my actual birthday.

Let's rewind. Last weekend, I turned 30. And the Dawgs were not playing at all. And somehow, my husband managed to pull off a completely surprising surprise party. You know how after the fact, you usually remember some things that should've been red flags? Well, there weren't even any of those. And I didn't even know Chad had something like this in him, honestly. But the man conspired with my mom and Danielle and the rest is all history....

I had requested that we keep our kiddos with us for the night of my birthday so Chad suggested a picnic with my parents, and that would be that. Or not. Due to an out-of-nowhere cold snap, we decided to pick somewhere to eat on the Marietta square instead of an actual picnic My Dad said he was hungry for pizza and I fell right for the bait with an "oh, there's a great pizza place right there- let's do that." As Chad pulled open the door, I rounded the doorway and found myself in the middle of lots of my friends screaming "surprise!" Then I did what any normal human would do... cried?!??! Ha!

We had pizza....

A balloon guy stopped by....

And Danielle had picked the perfect "cake" for me....

Donuts!

The room was full of my favorite people (most of them anyway!) my favorite kids, lots of cards, and everyone there to celebrate. To say I left feeling loved would be an understatement-- my heart was overflowing! I'm so thankful for my husband- working to pull it all off- he said it was so hard and had him super stressed out! And apparently some of the ladies were a bit concerned because a lot of the communication went through the men, ha! But I was so grateful- actually I still am! Thank you!