A Lovely Little Tea Party

Finally, I am getting the photos up from Miss Mae's birthday tea party! Everything takes so much longer these days with baby O. in the picture... We had SUCH a lovely day! Maggie invited her friends from school and they came all gussied up as the "little ladies who lunch" that they are. My mom sewed these amazing fabric garlands after we saw them at party perfect! I adore her blog, and when I saw them, I immediately emailed my mom and showed her. I thought, "maybe when Miss Mae is older I'll have time!" But grandma set to work and made them all! She turned hers on the diagonal and went with a pink theme. They are made from her stash of fabric, sheets, and even clothing she cut up. If you want any more info about how we did it, just leave me a comment and I'll be happy to fill you in. I'm posting more photos on flickr, too.

My awesome mom also dug out a box of tea cups and saucers and hunted for the perfect silver spoons for months.I really, really tried to scale this party back after the huge productions Mr. Henry's parties have been in the past - again, I'm not talking about pony rides or anything, but I like to throw a party! The little cream puffs are from COSTCO - I love them - my kids call them ice cream balls because they are just as yummy frozen. We also had fresh strawberries with whipped cream, and jam and butter sandwiches: one side wheat and one side brown for a checker board effect.

The first order of business was decorating hats. They were waiting for the girls at the kitchen table so as the girls arrived, they could all sit down together. I searched high and low for hats to decorate, and ended up finding them in the target dollar bins! perfect! Because the girls were little (3-5 ish) I hot glued the marabou boas to the hats before they arrived. (I was having images of tiny fingers covered with wet glue and boa fluffs stuck to them, and glue takes WAY too long to dry.) I had sticky back jewels ready for them to adorn their hats.Next we all moved to the living room for an old fashioned cake walk revamped for the tea party theme. Pink, blue, yellow, and white tea pots and tea cups were our circle, and when the music stopped, I called out a color or a shape, and whoever was standing on the said color or shape would get a little bead necklaces or stickers or smarties or glittery pencils. Mostly I just filled every one's little buckets as full as Icould get them.

In order to be able to set the "table" (the floor in our case) we had all of the little ladies go back to the kitchen table and make bead bracelets. Here is miss Katie working intently on hers.

And finally the tea party!! I used lemonade, just in case. And lemonade 'cream'. And pretty pink and purple sugar. After having 6 years of Mr. H. parties, I was prepared to do so much HERDING! I had my game plan and was ready for those little girls to be running all over the house. I put sheets down on the floor so clean up would be easy and nothing would have very far to fall. The girls were perfect little ladies and not a drop was spilled!

I went with my favorite cupcakes in the world, St. Cupcakes. Every year I threaten to make a cake, and that still hasn't happened! These cupcakes are SO good, no one ever misses anything I might attempt.

It was a perfect day! I can't believe my little Miss Mae is already 4 years old. She is a treasure and has chosen the best friends!