Sophie Birthday update

Seems like i only post on birthdays these days! oh my.

Well, Sophie is turning 17 next wednesday but the weekends surrounding her birthday are packed with proms.  senior prom with her friend ben and mormon prom on the 10th.  SO... we decided to have a little surprise party for her last weekend knowing that it was far enough ahead she would never ever suspect.  I enlisted her friend, Melanie, who organized a private Facebook group and invited like 50 kids from school.  most of them from choir

All week long we were gussying up the front patio and working on lighting in the yard, doug lit the photo wall with her standing right there in the garage and she genuinely didn't put it together.  She had a super busy week and then i texted her friend Aki to see if he'd text her to hang out and they decided to go to the BEACH! it was awesome.  She was out of the house the most of the day. When we got back i took her to World Market to look at styling her room. She is doing a 10 hour project for personal progress, planning out and executing a bedroom restyle so we were getting some good ideas. ANYWAY we were just having a blast and we ended up at the mall and went into sephora. We decided to do full  makeup with the testers, which i figured she'd want to look good for her big surprise. She still had no idea and then doug texted me and i was like, OK WE HAVE TO GO! (she said later she was super bugged at the time that i wouldn't stand up to Doug and tell him to just deal with the kids while we were out. hahahahahaha)

Then we drove home and the house looked so cute all pretty and it was dark inside and she was taking forever to go in the house and finally she walked through the door and i flipped on the light and there were kids laying a llllll over each other pretending to be asleep and they yelled surprise!!!!

She about had a heart attack. Absolutely had NO idea. Here's the video! i"m sure you've all seen it on instagram but i'll put it here, too.

Her friend, Juliana took the video and most of it is sideways but i'm so glad we have it!!


so then we played music and ping pong (doug ran to fullerton on saturday to get one off craigslist. p.s. fullerton is far. haha) But mostly the kids grouped together and took photos on the photo wall.  Doug took 1200 photos. 1200!!!! They were going crazy for it.  I asked her friends nick and jeremy to be in charge of music and they put on an 80's mix. it was AWESOME!! it really just fit the party perfectly.  we ordered a giant big mama's pizza that was only okay.  don't order that pizza  it's not like it was super cheap and it didn't taste great.  lame.  oh well, they are teenagers.

we did cake and the happy birthday song was the loudest CHORUS i'd ever heard.  they are all singers and they all belted it. Hysterical!!

She didn't stop smiling all night long. The last of the regular folks left at 1 and I took Mel and jeremy home at 2.  What. A. Party.

Happy 17 Sophie!!

Here's the link to all the photos if anyone is interested.  there are over 200. which seems like a lot but paring down from 1200 was a major feat! :)

http://dougchamberlain.viewbook.com/album/sophie17#1

Otherwise, Doug is staying busy and we are about 3 weeks away from school ending.  and i still want a pool.  this heat wave is making nervous.

Penny woke up last night thinking that burglars had come and stolen her fuzzy pink stuffed animal lovey. She was totally convinced they broke in and stole it.  She's also convinced that sharks are going to come out of the toilet and bite her bum.

Simon is still a little devil of destruction. but with a seriously cute face, dang him.

Owen is learning LIVING ON A PRAYER on the guitar, standing up.  it's his assignment to be able to play it standing up this week. hahahaha!! that was my very first concert!! bon jovi.  he also got to play an electric guitar and he loved that big time.

Mel is a senior and will be graduating this year. sophie is SUPER sad to lose her

Good old Tyler -- they have been friends since we moved here.  good kid, this one. 

Sophie and Juliana.  

This is the Fab 5. They are besties right now.  All funny, wonderful kids. jeremy, nick, melanie and josh

2 kids from Los Alamitos drove and hour to come to the party?? say what?!

The grand chorus

One Happy Chica

Sleepy Owen fell asleep on Nick's lap.  

Melanie and Sophie looking through all the awesome photos! 

This is 2am.  happy and exhausted. 

Jeremy crashed after midnight

Taking them home at 2 am. 

Random pic of penny and gabriela.  we tried to go swimming at the Sportsmans Lodge and they wanted to charge us 25 dollars per person. hahaha. no thanks.  This mcDonalds play place is pretty cool

Summer and Simon singing along to Frozen.  I LOVE them!!