The Big Party

So last Saturday I hosted a surprise party for my husband and two of my daughters. Darryl and Violet share the same birthday and Jasmine is just a couple of weeks earlier than them. It went very well. My husband was surprised, I don't know how, but he was. I kept accidently leaving little things out (like the guest list!), but he never noticed. Jasmine already knew about the party but she and Violet were happy to see all the gifts.

Here are some photos of the day. Many, many, many thanks to all the family and good friends who helped me pull this off. I would have gone nuts if I had to do this alone!

Violet's Pinata. Lila helped stuff this sucker full of chocolate & toys.

I bought 3 journals and left them on a table with some family photo albums of my girls and Darryl during his childhood. There was a note on the table asking people to leave a message for Darryl, Jasmine and Violet. A big thanks to my MIL for spending two days going through photos and putting an album together of my hubby.

Ok, this is a crappy picture. Me, my friend Mary and Darryl's sister Tammy made party favors for all the guests. Little boxes that were stamped and had chocolates in them. The chocolates were wrapped in stamped sticker paper. It was A LOT of work but worth it. Mary was very instrumental in this. I'm not sure it would have gone as easily with out her!

We had so much food! Yum, it was all great.

I made 8 center pieces. My husbands favorite thing in the world (besides me, of course) is M&M's. Each bowl was filled w/ candy and had a picture of all three birthday people when the were young. Which for Violet was pretty easy, since she's just three!

Darryl, my husband, is in the middle. My friend, Jeremy is on the left. He and I have been friends since kindergarten. His wife, Mary is on the left. Mary was a little afraid of us when she and Jeremy first started dating (we can be a bit loud and crazy) but we won her over. I enlist her help when ever something crafty, stampy, or artsy needs to be done. She's pretty darn good!

This is Darryl's Uncle Ken on the left and his Dad Neil on the right. Ken and his wife Jane came up from Massachusets for the party.

Lila Grace. Done, tired, finito. She woke up with a cold that morning but was a trooper all day. She didn't complain at all. This was as we were packing up the car to go home and she was pooped out.

I had the party at the Surry Town Hall. Behind the hall was a very cool, very old cemetary. Some of the headstones date back to the 1700's!

One of the coolest ones was for Ichabod Crain, the main character in the Legend of Sleepy Hollow story. As legend has it, that story was based on true events. Ichabod was so scared by all that happened, he and his family moved to from NY to NH. He owned and operated a general store until he died. Several years ago the town replaced the headstone with his full name on it to prevent tourist. As I said, some of the stones are hundreds of years old and they were worried about them being ruined. If you google Ichabod Crain, you can find a picture of the original stone.

Some of the headstones from the 1700's were very poetic. The were all hand carved on thin sheets of slate. You could even see the lines they carved in them to keep the letters straight. You can see on this one was missing the Jr. so someone had to add it in. Here's the poem in case you can't read it:

Behold and see as you pass by

As you are now so once was I

As I am now so you must be

Prepare for death and follow me

Some how, there are just no pictures of me from that day. Darn! Oh well, maybe at the next event.