Kami's surprise

Kami turned 16 on Friday!  Little did she know, but I had been planning a big surprise party for her for the last month!  I had contacted all of her friends about it, and then suddenly there was a surprise party for one or two kids per weekend!  So it didn't end up looking like a very original idea - I guess age sixteen is a surprise birthday party age:)

Friday morning I told Kami that I wanted to get some pictures of her on her 16th birthday when school got out.  After school, the rest of us were rushing around trying to tie up all the loose ends before the party, but Kami was oblivious to it.  She calmly practiced her piano and got ready because she thought we were going to go to the school play later on.  Caden and Maddie finished baking some cookies I had started while Shawn and I ran things back and forth to the party site.  At one point I apologized to Kami that she was having such an un-exciting birthday.  She replied, "I'm having a WONDERFUL birthday!"  So I decided to tease her a little bit.  I asked her what her friends had gotten her for her birthday (knowing that they hadn't given her anything yet).  She said, "Well, Hailee is the only one that gave me anything.)  I said, "Jeesh!  What slacker friends!!" And she said, "No.  Mom. They made me feel really special!!"  She is always so easy to please!:)

About ten minutes before the party started, I took Kami with me to grab a pizza for the younger kids.  I told her that after we took her pictures, she could choose something to eat.  Evidently, there were already two boys at the front door the second that Kami and I pulled out of the garage.  We just missed seeing them!  I really took my time, giving everyone a chance to gather, but Kami still had no idea!  When we got back to the house, we saw a (late) girl run up to the front door.  Caden pulled the girl into the house before she even had a chance to knock, came out and grabbed the pizza from us and then came back and jumped in the car and said, "We need to hurry and get those pictures taken! I'll come help!"  So we took off for the Wades shop where we had the party.  (I had told Kami that there were some great backdrops out at the Wade's barn) BTW - the late girl got there right behind us:) We walked in and everyone started singing to her and she was completely taken by surprise.

We played games and ate lots of food and I was so glad that we did this for Kami!  It was stressful day-of because so many friends had school things - sports, debate events, etc. that made it so that they couldn't come and I started worrying that the group would be too small to do everything that we had planned, but it ended up that we still had a good number. She had such a great time and I could tell that it meant a lot to her that we went to all that effort for her birthday.

And I really didn't get any individual pictures that night;)