Remember When ↠ l.p.

Birthday surprise

I turn the door handle slowly and then beckon for Tessie and the other girls to enter ahead of me. Caitlin's mouth drops open as she lays eyes on the balloons lining the hallway and the little fairy lights we hung up sporadically along the wall. "Wow!" she gasps as she trails her hand along a strand of lights and takes it all in. "Is this for my birthday!?" She asks me, bouncing up and down with excitement as her friends giggle next to her. 

"It sure is! In fact we've got a whole party planned out for you and lots of other surprises!" I pull her into a quick hug and then say, loudly "Why don't we go into the living room to see what other birthday surprises are in store?" The girls rush into the living room with me hot on their heels. We all arrive at about the same time and have to squeeze in around each other to get in.

Inside the living room a wonderland awaits us. I spent a lot of time on it this morning, hanging up a mural I bought online that shows some of the landscape from the Disney movie. I've unrolled it along the wall and taped it up. There are more fairy lights and also streamers hung from the ceiling. I printed out pictures of the characters and hung them from the ceiling fan. Then there's the piñata that's hung in almost the center of the room and it's of Cailyn's favorite character from the movie. To finish off the whole effect, the room is completely dark apart from the fairy lights lighting up our background that wraps around the whole room, and the soundtrack to the movie is playing in the background. 

Cailyn stands partly in the room, her hands covering her mouth and her eyes shining with joy. "Oooh..." she gasps. The girls around her make their own oohs or ahhs of admiration. I stand in the back, happy with how the whole effect has worked out. I subtly peer into the dim room, looking for hidden shapes. I texted Liam right before I left the parking lot at the kindergarten, they should have had plenty of time to get into position. Just as I'm about to get worried, someone moves nearby me, making me jump. It's Liam, he puts a finger to his lip and leans over to flick the light switch next to my arm.

The sudden light makes me blink to adjust my eyes. "Surprise!" Liam and Tessie jump out of their hiding places. And...so do both of my parents and...Louis and Harry? I mimic Cailyn, covering my gaping mouth with my hands as I feel my eyes start to tear up, just a little. Cailyn cries out with joy and rushes to enter a giant group hug. Louis pokes his head out from under a mass of bodies and arms to motion for me to join. I hurry over and wiggle myself into the massive hug.

Unfortunately for me, I bump into someone and lean back onto Harry, who smiles down at me a little awkwardly as I'm standing on his foot. I jump off of his foot and my elbow digs into Mother's side, she pokes me back...or tries to. She ends up hitting Louis who simply raises an eyebrow and laughs it off. Liam snickers though and that sets Louis off. Before we know it, we've all been pulled into a tickling and poking war that even Cailyn's friends join in on.

Soon we're all laughing on the floor and laid about on the furniture. Mother is doubled over laughing at something that accidentally happened to her knee and dad's-er-lower region, something she claims was an accident. Louis somehow found a cupcake (probably one Tessie snuck away) and smashed it all over Liam's face. The little girls ganged up on Harry and they're now laying on top of him now, covering the entire couch.

Cailyn sits up halfway and announces to everyone, "This is the best party ever!" and I have to agree with her. Everyone is here and I honestly don't think things could be any better. 

And that's when I scared everyone by starting to bawl my eyes out.