The Best Surprise!

Emmy, me, Sean, Mom, and Dad

Carley (32 weeks 3 days,) and me (31 weeks 5 days)

Carley, Jennie (11 weeks!!!) and me. We are so excited for you, Jennie! David is excited to be a big brother and when we ask him what's in Mommy's belly he says, "Sister." Woohoo! If he's right there are many hand-me-downs coming your way.

Rewind...

Last night while Sean and I were eating dinner my babysitter Sarah called to say that Charlie was really fussy and she had just thrown up. I could hear Charlie screaming in the background. Of course I said we'd be right there. This has happened to Sarah before while she babysat for us...bless her heart!

I had already had a GREAT day with my family for my 30th Birthday. Sean was home--more on that later--Mom, Dad, and Emmy came up for the day and we all played and went to the park with the kids, I got to have my hair done at the salon, (a huge treat since Robin only works the days Sean is traveling and this week he came home a day early,) and I had already torn into the cake my Mom made for me. Can you say run on sentence? :)

After Sarah called I was honestly frustrated that once again Charlie had picked something up and we don't take her anywhere! I kept telling Sean on the drive home that I felt like we might as well start taking her everywhere again because WHAT'S THE POINT??? Then I walked in the back door.

And saw my friends. Looked the other direction and saw my family. Looked behind me and saw Sean. It all took a little while to sink in. I looked at Sarah, standing holding a perfectly normal Charlie right inside the door and said, "She's NOT really sick?!" I was overwhelmed. Thanks Priscilla for sending these pictures to me so fast since I didn't know I'd be needing my camera.
Casey, me and Carley. Casey and I met in college and then she worked with the High School girls when I worked with the Jr. High girls. Carley was Sean's sidekick/party planner and pulled the whole thing off so perfectly. Carley thank you so much for working so hard for this party!
Add Priscilla, (again, the pictures are courtesy of her,) and her daughter Bonnie. The Young girls have been a constant since I first started going to our church. Bonnie started out in the youth group and is now engaged and finishing school in May. Bon and I took a tap class together when she was still in High School and it was so fun. My return to dancing was short-lived since I started working full-time as an intern (LPCI) a few months after our class started. Soon Priscilla and her hubby will move to Denver which of course makes me sad but thankfully Bonnie will live right down the street after her wedding.

The very first Sunday I visited Stonebriar I happened to sit by Priscilla. "Happened to..." the way that God does and you figure out later it was not an accident at all.

The girls who have heard it all-Priscilla, Jennie, Amy, Carley, Casey, Ginger, and Jamie. Of course there are some of our friends who had more important things to do and I'm hoping to catch up with everybody soon before Joy is here...once the newborn fog sets in I'm lucky to form a sentence at all.

A little out of order...this is while I was still figuring out what was happening. Sean pulled this whole thing off with the help of Carley, my Mom and Dad, Emmy, and Sarah.

Once I realized Charlie really wasn't sick and this was a party

Look how pretty this was. It was the best birthday I can remember, and I'm grateful Joy did not make an early appearance so it could all happen as planned. Sean later told me when he'd talk to Mom about the party they would always say, "As long as the baby doesn't come before this we'll be happy!" Like their goals for the pregnancy were 28 weeks, 30 weeks, birthday, etc. Ha!
Mom worked so hard to make me a cake to throw me off earlier in the day. I found out later that the day before when I said, "Are you making me a cake?" she panicked because they had already ordered a huge cake but I didn't know about it. They were scared I'd figure it out if we didn't celebrate earlier in the day...If you ever have the chance to eat one of Mom's angel food birthday cakes you'll see why I wanted to make sure I'd have one. She puts wedding cake icing on it and decorates it beautifully. Thanks Mom!
Carley sent me texts all day telling me she hoped I had a good day and she was sorry she wouldn't see me on my "real" birthday. Right now she was texting that she hoped I had a fun date night with Sean...liar! She was at my house the second I walked out to go to dinner...and sent this in the middle of setting up for the party.
Sarah and Charlie. Since they needed Charlie to be crying to make the whole thing seem legit, they would take Charlie to her room and put her in her bed. She'd start crying and Sarah would call me. Hilarious now but I really believed Charlie was sick. The weird thing is that my girl really did have a low grade fever all day so it was totally believable. She is just teething thank God--I felt really bad for having a bad attitude on the trip home from the restaurant once I knew why they told me she was sick.

On Wednesday during Sean's first full day of work, he got re-routed and his trip suddenly wasn't going to be over until late Friday night instead of like 3 that day. He called me to tell me, (this has started happening a lot since there aren't enough reserve pilots right now,) and he was livid. He said he'd never been more frustrated that he wouldn't get home when he thought he would, he'd drive home if he had to, etc. I kept saying, "Babe, it's okay. We'll celebrate when you get home, even if that's Sunday, it won't matter." Now I know why he was so mad.

Sean, thank you so much for making my 30th Birthday so memorable. I love you! It was the perfect celebration to cap off the last few months. Now Joy can make her appearance.