Happy Late Birthday Mom & Dad

Back in March my siblings and I put together a Surprise Birthday Party for my Mom.  We had been planning this party since October of last year. That is how long it takes for 4 sisters and 1 sister in law to figure out what we wanted to do for my Mom and how the heck were we going to pull it off.  I am telling you when we do something...its always a large task..and never a dull moment...only a couple of flubs during the process...coordinating times to visit the restaurant- changing dates multiple times, constant emails and text messages back and forth making sure everyone was on board....making sure everyone's opinions were heard and noted...picking out centerpieces only to have a one baby puking all over me and the store personnel giving us weird looks, trying to take a family photo of all of the kids and grandkids and actually get a good shot (not and easy task), having to lie over and over to my Mom....taking calls from my Mom- lying to her about my whereabouts, then hanging up with her, only to hear another sister's phone ringing two seconds later and listening to them tell a fib to my Mom about their whereabouts...this happened numerous times, all the while we are cracking up  and trying to stay quiet over the dumb lies we are telling her. My Mom makes the rounds when she makes calls sometimes and it just happened to be when we were always together. Anyways we somehow pulled off the Surprise. We told her that we were going out to dinner with just the girls...so Fran picked her up and took her to Volare Restaurant in Oakbrook where the surprise was reviled.  It was a great night with food, drinks, friends and family...here are some pictures of the night...Since I was one of the hosts, I did not take the best pictures, so bear with me...

Anthony & Luke - Best Buds

 As a gift to my Mom, along with the party we went to Portrait Innovations and had three pictures taken..one of all the Grandkids...minus Rose's Bun in the Oven, another picture of  the17 of us, and then a picture of my brother, and all three son-in-laws. This one was a last minute picture that was meant for a joke...Of course I only have the framed picture of the Grandkids, but the other pictures turned out pretty good. My Dad's birthday is the day after my Mom's so we wanted to make sure he had a picture to open and display on his desk. He really got a kick out of it.  Its so nice that my Dad can come home from work and sit and relax in his office with a picture of his four favorite sons staring at him!

 The Cake...and some pictures of my Mom.

 Fran, Chris, Demi (hiding behind some glasses) and Rose

 Ahh the two love birds who are going to be celebrating an anniversary in April...I think 9 years together???

 The "big" kids - we stuck them in the corner and forced them to play video games just so they would behave!

 Adriana & Nick....neither would look at me...Elmo is more exciting than me.

 Me and Brian

 All the Girls....Tried my hardest to get a picture of the Whole Family...but that never works out.

 This is a cute God Daughter picture...Auntie Mary is Fran's Godmother and Fran is Gia's Godmother. Two Generations of of God-mothering.

 Josh holding Adriana...this is very rare...she usually is scared sh*tless of him...he must have offered her ice cream or something.

Happy Birthday Mom...and Dad...We love you!