My older sister Erin is turning the big 3-0 next month so we wanted to do something fun and special to celebrate with her. She always loved Cinderella growing up and when she heard that Broadways Rodgers + Hammersteins Cinderella was coming to our area she really wanted to go!

We {my sisters, mom and I} decided to gather a group of her favorite ladies together to surprise her with tickets to the show and a nice dinner. We struggled at first to find a way to actually pull off the surprise part. We thought about just picking her up and taking her to dinner and having everyone there waiting, but it was a Broadway show so she'd have to get dressed up nice! Which meant, sure we could tell her to get dressed nice and be ready to be picked up, but sometimes {especially for Erin} part of the fun of going to something like this is getting to purchase a new outfit! We also thought it would be fun for all of us to ride together in a friends large 12 passenger van - my first idea was to get a limo, but I just couldn't afford it, so a 12 passenger homeschool van worked perfectly! And of course, anticipation of an event can be just as fun as being surprised, right? So we decided to let her in on the plans a week before the show!

I found this idea for a surprise box on Pinterest {where else?!} so mom, Mal, Sara and I put it all together for her one day. We found all of our supplies at Michael's Craft store - because they have 50% off coupons so we each buy something for 50% off ;). We had to be careful not to post any pictures on social media of our shopping outing because we didn't want to let Erin know we were out shopping and having a crafting day without her!

Here's how the box turned out: