Tea Time!

Today was the big day, the day I've been preparing for for the last couple of weeks: a tea party to celebrate Annabelle, Daisy, and Lilah's birthdays.

The invitations went out about three weeks ago (of course I masked our address and phone number before uploading here; can't have everyone showing up at our house now can I?). I invited all the girls from Lilah's preschool class, and all the girls from the twins' first grade class, plus a couple of additional special friends. And honestly, I really thought maybe three or four girls from each of their classes would decide to attend, so that we'd have about a dozen girls. We ended up with TWENTY-SEVEN girls here (including my three)!! I ended up having to rent tables and chairs - this was going to be some party!

And of course I was stressed and worried about how it would go - I've never thrown a shindig like this before. Yesterday was going to be a day crammed with preparing food and tea party accoutrements, but thanks to a freak thunder storm yesterday morning that downed some nearby power lines, our power was out all day yesterday. From 9:30 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. I did as much as I could without power, including making finger sandwiches last night by lantern, I kid you not.

Anyway, all's well that ends well. I was up early this morning finishing everything up with Michael's help, and voila, a tea party for twenty-seven girls:





Okay, let me just stop a minute and present an ode to my good friend, Caryl (who happens to be Daisy and Annabelle's first grade teacher, and was Joey's first grade teacher as well). As soon as she heard we were having a tea party, she jumped up waving her arms to help. And let me just say, I never could have pulled this off without her help. She was AMAZING. In addition to coming early to help me set up the food and place settings, she also loaned me teacups and saucers, took charge of keeping all the kids orderly (she is an expert at keeping large groups of kids orderly, after all), she helped serve and washed most of the dishes afterwards. I LOVE YOU, CARYL!!

And while I'm at it, I'd like to send a million thanks out to my friends, Karen and Meghan, too, who also loaned me teacups (I had about a dozen of my own, but did I mention that we had twenty-seven girls here?), and to all the wonderful moms who helped out at the party, too. Thank you, thank you!









I served the leftover sandwiches from the cut-outs to the moms.






Aren't the girls darling? Ohhhhh, I was overdosing on cuteness today!






Me and Caryl. Michael has a knack for getting these really bad candid shots of me. Just had to share.


After lunch, which consisted of finger sandwiches of two varieties - pb & j, and turkey and cheese - fruit-kebobs, bunny crackers, chocolate covered strawberries, and of course tea . . . well, really, raspberry lemonade or apple juice, we decorated picture frames which the girls each took home along with a photo of themselves.


And a group photo :)


And cupcakes! I wish I could say I made these gorgeous cupcakes myself - which, I don't know if you can tell, but had edible glitter and hand-molded chocolates on them in the shapes of flowers and teapots - but I didn't. They were made especially for us by a wonderful aspiring cake designer. So good!


And that was it. The whole party lasted about two hours, and moved right along from one activity to the next. Nobody got bored, everyone got along, the girls all put on their best manners for the occasion, and everyone seemed to have a really good time. It was perfect!