Fancy

A few months ago the saddest of all the things happened. Jared and Kerstin moved and took their kids with them (rude)! I guess they were ready to move on with the next phase of their lives but they didn't ask us if we were ready for them to move on (spoiler alert: we weren't). It's been an adjustment having them gone. The kids frequently ask to see their cousins and it makes me sad to have to tell them no. Josie especially has a hard time with this. The boys understand that they've moved out of state, but Josie doesn't quite get the concept (she still thinks that our friends who moved last year are coming over any time). Anywho, long story short: they're gone and we miss them. Lots.

When they moved though, they gave us a tea set. They had a couple and decided to part with one. When Kerstin gave it to me, I put it on my counter and it's been sitting there ever since. Sitting there for months. Mocking Josie with tea parties that never happen. She's been asking and asking for a tea party and I give her the standard mom party line, "yes, we can have a tea party sometime".

Well she had upped her game, asking several times a day and I finally decided that I needed to up my mom game and let her have one. We figured out who she would invite (since it's only service for four that made the numbers easy). Josie made invitations (oh I wish I'd taken pictures, pink paisley invites with unicorns on them - how do you say no to an invitation like that). We handed out the invites to her friends and then set out planning the tea.

Josie is a girly girl and wanted it to be a fancy tea party. So we went for it. Purple table cloths, purple balloons, doilies, purple napkins, fancy tiny finger foods, fancy party favors, etc. I will admit, I had a lot of fun planning this with her.  It's kind of fun as an adult to be able to be a kid again where everything is special and fun and magical. The more excited she got, the more excited I got. And vice versa.

On the day of the tea party she helped me set up:
I think it turned out pretty cute for a last minute tea party.

 I especially love the place cards she made for her friends. Her handwriting at this age is far from perfect, but I adore it. I love the way she wrote everyone's name and then colored in the closed letters (this one below is her own name).

 When the friends started arriving the girls played for a while. Josie giving me a fancy pose.

 Clara came with a very appropriate hat (I adore that hat, I'd keep it if I could).

 Again, I just loved her place cards (this is for her friend Julia, not Juria).

One of her friends woke up sick and couldn't come. That made all the girls sad...except Sammie. She got an official spot at the big girl table and she couldn't have been happier about that!

 Josie and Clara. Very fancy.

  Sammie and Julia. Can you tell Sam is excited to be a 'big girl'? She totally is.

Pouring tea. We only had one casualty with this and that was when Sam decided to pour her own. Fortunately our 'tea' was purple kool aid so it matched our table cloth.

My favorite thing was that this girlie spoke with a (sort of) British accident the. entire. time. She never broke character. She was killing me. Love it!

It was a fun event enjoyed by all. I predict there will be a few more tea parties in our future. So thanks for the tea set Kerstin, Tori, and Ella. We wish you were still here to come to our tea parties.