Cake and Dagger!!! A surprise birthday story...

2009 marks the 7oth anniversary of my mother's birth. Months ago, when I asked Mom about having a party she said, "It's 75 the big one?" So I figured we'd wait 5 more years to have a big shindig. Then, life being life, threw us a couple of curve balls and I decided - to heck with that! Life is too short to sit around and wait for reasons to have a party.. we're gonna do it.

Now, because Mom had "poopooed" the whole birthday bonanza idea, I figured we'd have to be sneaky about it. So I asked Papa... always ask Papa. Being the fun loving and Mom-loving guy that he is, he thought this to be a worthy endeavor, saying, " Just tell me when and where and I'll get her there."

Thus began the frantic, secret emails between myself and my siblings. In thinking it through, I figured we'd have to have party someplace where Mom was used to being, but not expecting a party. Luckily for me, I work in an AWESOME place and when I asked if we might use the theater for our plot, I was graciously given the green light.

Now I had the venue, I had the date- her birthday fell on a Saturday!- all we needed was a guest list and menu.

Both of these seem like fairly straight forward and simple things to do. Alas... simple does not mean easy. A few years ago I did a surprise anniversary party for my parents and had to steal Mom's address book, take it to Kinkos and copy all of the relevant info. I knew I didn't have time to do that again, but I still needed the names. So, one evening while "visiting" Mom I spent the evening dodging Mom while writing down names and THEN trying to find their email addresses on her computer ALL without her noticing... Why is it whenever you're trying to be sneaky Mom has 35,000 things to tell you and wants to show you on the computer?

Once I had the names and addresses in order I sent out a mass e-vite. In my e-vite and in my excitement I failed to send out ALL of the pertinent info... sigh... some of the email addresses were wrong and I had to hope that fellow friends would forward them on.

So with a date, a venue AND guests now we needed food and decorations...

Mom's birthday is on Valentines day... LUCKILY Mom's favorite color is red. Add to that, the fact that her maiden name was Hart and I was in business.

This was a huge collaboration between my siblings and myself. Logan had a red crock pot, Joni had several serving pieces we could use and I had some too. I also raided every Target and Ross I could find looking for inexpensive pieces.

Keeping the menu simple was key- basic finger foods really. I also decided that if everyone was to be here about a hour before Mom, I had best give them more than some chex mix and peanuts to munch on!

Costco is my best friend. I went early to price everything in order to give Papa a clue as to how much this extravaganza would set him back. I tired to go twice to price things- the first time they actually wouldn't let me in because I had forgotten my card! Seriously!!!!! That had NEVER happened to me in all my years as a Costco member. Later that SAME DAY I tried at another Costco, this time with card in hand and they closed right as we got in the door... no time to browse... sigh...

FINALLY I was able to get the pricing done and sort out quantities. I ALWAYS buy too much food. ALWAYS. So I planned meticulously... when the day came to buy all the food- Roberta helped me to practically ignore all of my careful calculations- we still had too much food but we were under budget (almost). I could've just bought pre-made cheese and cracker plates and shrimp platters, but that was WAY more expensive.

So I bought big bricks of cheese and huge bags of veggies and boxes of crackers. I had so much fun standing around the kitchen with Ro and Suzie on Friday night cutting the cheese.... and veggies- don't be gross.

The day before the party Joni was coming into town because Mom had asked her to visit. She had to tell Mom she couldn't leave Arizona until noon so she could first drive to my house to drop off all of her decorations and serving ware and then drive to Mom's. Mom had no idea she'd even been to my house! Sneaky!

The day of the party, with 3 car loads of food and decorations, we arrived and began prepping the black box theatre for the party. Ro, Suzie, Danny, Sara, Logan, Randy and I had fun setting it all up. Red an white everywhere. Hearts. Lights. Flowers. etc. In the middle of hanging lights, mom called and asked Logan to bring over some tangerines from his tree. He didn't want Mom to get suspicious so he had to finish up quickly then run to Riverside, drop of the fruit and run back! Thanks Mom, for making us sweat! :)

My Favorite part was the picture of Mom from 1957. My friend Matt kindly enhanced and enlarged Mom's picture for me and we mounted it in a frame for everyone to sign. I LOVED IT!


We all worked hard to make it pretty. Suzie did an amazing job laying out the veggies and cheese. Sara made the silverware pretty and helped with the decorating. Randy and Danny were my strong moving men. Logan was my picture and lights guy! Ro was totally fantastic with everything- helping, organizing, decorating- all of it.

So how did we get Mom there you might ask? Brilliance I will say! Mom and Papa have a restaurant they like to go to that is very nice and conveniently located near CSUSB. My cousin, Kayren decided to come visit Mom fer her birthday and Papa was going to take them all to eat there. I had been a a conference all week and was going to have to work some overtime on that Saturday to catch up. Hee Hee... Kayren and I share a love of costuming and she "needed" to show me something that "needed" to be seen in the costume shop. SO.... they planned to "drop by" before dinner... Needless to say Papa still owes Mom a dinner at Les Rendezvous!

All went well.. Happy Birthday Mom!

The Girls!

The Boys!