My mom just had her 50th birthday. She's going to kill me for typing out her age, so let's just start with a picture to show just how beautiful she is.

I emailed my step dad, Dave, a while back asking if he had thought about doing anything special for my mom's 50th birthday. He replied that he was under strict orders not to do anything big. "But that doesn't mean someone else can't do something," was his reply. So we started brainstorming. My mom doesn't like big gatherings. She doesn't like being the center of attention. But we just had to do something special for her big 5-0. So we decided on a cookout. We'd invite family and close friends; it'd be casual, but fun. Also, we decided to keep it a surprise because she would totally not allow it if she knew about it. Let me tell you. Keeping it a surprise was the hardest part.

My step sister decided she was going to come up from North Carolina for the event. So we plotted. She sent an email saying she had a "doctor's appointment" she needed to come up for that weekend. Dave would take her to the "doctor's appointment" on Saturday in Maryland (aka go shopping for all the food and supplies) and I would take my mom out shopping for the day. It took A LOT of coordinating because I wanted to make sure I was telling my mom the same things Dave was telling her. We told her we would then meet up for dinner that evening.

I convinced my mom to go to the paint store to check out some paint colors for our new house. Then we drove down to the model home to match some colors and check out our plot of land. Once we spent some time there, we headed to Kingstowne for some soup at Panera and a little shopping. Ann Taylor Loft was having a 40% off sale for the day, so we headed over to Landmark to check it out. Just as we were nearing the time we needed to leave to head home for the big surprise, I got a phone call from Steve telling me some guests were stuck in traffic and I needed to delay my mom. So I went out into the store and grabbed a bunch more clothes to try on. After buying some extra time, we finally paid and headed home.

I started getting so excited and I SO wanted to share that excitement with my mom, but I had to hold it all in. I called Steve as we were turning into her neighborhood and told him we'd be there in about two minutes. I also told him sorry for keeping him waiting so long to go to dinner, just so my mom wouldn't get suspicious about the phone call. As we turned onto my mom's street, I remembered my camera was in my purse. Behind my seat. I was driving. So I started driving really slow as I reached behind the seat and into my purse fishing for the camera and turned it on, all the while my mom is next to me saying, "Umm, could you...step on it?!" "Yeah, Mom, just a sec."

Steve and I broke out some Cornhole.
Opening presents:

I made up a recipe for Reese's Pieces cupcakes because my mom loves Reece's. They were pretty tasty.
We all had a great time. Even my mom :-)