After receiving a surprise makeover from her kids and good friend on her birthday this year, Michelle Duggar said she wasn’t sure how she felt about the big change. Now, she insists, it was a good thing.

Duggar–who is mom to 19 children–has had the same style for all of her adult life, prompting her savvy daughters to set up a friendly ambush in order to chop off the long, curly mullet she’d been growing for years. When she turned around in the salon chair, she was obviously shocked at the transformation.

“I thought, “This is what I look like when I get out of the shower!” Michelle said of the sleek cut, which her daughters said made her look “amazing”.

Though it appeared to have grown on her a bit as the day went on, Michelle said she wasn’t sure she would hold onto the style after husband Jim Bob expressed that he favored her hair on the long side.

“I enjoyed the fact that my whole family and my girls came up with this amazing way of showing how much they loved me with a 24-hour birthday surprise…“I know Jim Bob likes it long and I am trying to impress him — what he likes is what I want,” she says. “I think he was a little shocked at first, it was so straight and so different. But he does like it. I think I shocked everyone at the [birthday] party. They were very surprised.”

Michelle insists she does like the new look now that the shock has worn off, but her 2-year old still isn’t sure about it.

“Little Josie kept touching my hand and saying, ‘Mommy? Mommy? Mommy?’ She wanted to make sure I was still me.”

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Michelle before her makeover

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Image: Peter Kramer