Happy 3rd birthday!

Sadie celebrated her 3rd birthday (March 28) with a tea party this year with three of her little friends: Janie, Makenzy, and Makaley. While a little crazy for her poor sleep deprived mom, Sadie and friends had a great time!

We decorated tea cup pictures with flower stickers, read the book "Tea for Ruby", decorated straw hats with flowers, ribbons and tulle, and opened presents. But the highlight of the party was unmistakabley the TEA PARTY!

Sadie was the youngest little girl at the party and easily the craziest! I'm thinking we'll do a tea party for Molly one day as well, but probably not until her 4th birthday.

It was a really fun party for little girls though. I LOVE having girls!!!!

After it was all over with, we enjoyed some quiet time...

and Sadie tried out her new rain gear....



for those who are interested (and for our own failing memories around here)...

Extra Details:

Invitations:

I had ordered Sadie this tea party print when she moved into her big girl room last summer. The artist also had these invitations with the same painting on it.

Decorations:

I really had a fun time planning this party in my head, but when it came time for execution, it was pretty thrown together at the last minute! I don't know what the proper protocol is for kids' parties....when to send the invites and how much is too much...that sort of stuff. I tend to err on the more relaxed side of most of this, mostly because Daniel and I weren't raised on extravagant birthdays. So the invitations were sent out with one week's notice and much of the prep work was done the week of the party. I do feel like, with our kids a million miles from their grandparents and cousins, we have to do something to celebrate their little lives and make them feel special, but honestly (in my little party-planning and detail-loving mind) I consciously hold back a little to not overdo things. No need to create unreal expectations in my already dramatic 3-year-old, huh?

My mom bought this embroidered tablecloth for us to use...I LOVE it...so pretty! Of course there are pink milk stains on it now, but oh well!

My grandmother shipped the tablecloth along with the tea cups and saucers to us. So sweet of her! The tea cups were my great grandmothers. They are nothing special as far as worldly value, but my great grandmother, my sister, and I had tea parties with them when I was a little a girl. So they are quite sentimental, and I'm so glad my grandma, Jean Jean, thought to offer them to us AND ship them here. What a treat!

The other dishes are my depression glass that Jean Jean collected for me growing up and gifted to me when I graduated from college (as I was officially an adult...yikes!). I use these dishes all the time, but generally they're saved for special parties.

The party was a great excuse to make those banners. The ultimate destination for the banners was Sadie's room. So they are made in fabrics that match the colors in her room. It's nice that they could do double duty.

Activities:

The girls decorated tea cup pictures (made from clip art found on the internet glued to white doilies and pink gingham scrapbook paper) while we were waiting for everyone to get here:

Sadie got the book "Tea for Ruby" for her first Christmas from our sweet friend Tracy. We love this book! Tracy had it signed by the author Sarah Ferguson (who, despite her mishaps over the last several years, I really do love the former Duchess of York...she's helpessly flawed like the rest of us, right?). My sister-in-law, Suzanne, suggested we read it since it was a special book of Sadie's, and it related to tea parties and manners.

Mamaw had the idea for the girls to decorate straw hats with fun flowers and ribbons, but I had to actually FIND affordable straw hats. Insert Target! Of course! It pays to have a birthday around Easter, because these little numbers were found in the dollar bins at Target. They aren't the highest quality I'm sure, but they sure did work for a party activity and favor.

Food:

My favorite part! ;) We cut out the sandwiches into flower shapes. For the pb&j, I cut little circles in the top so you could see the red jelly. :) The cucumbers were also cut out like flowers and had ranch dip dabbed on top. We made mini fruit skewers with green grapes and blueberries on party toothpicks. Then we bought the sweet treats: giant petit fours (have you ever seen such large petit fours? I'm not certain they even qualify as a petit four, but they were so yummy!), pastel butter cookies, and lemon glazed mini cakes.

We opted not to serve the little girls tea for obvious reasons (little girls don't really drink much tea yet!). Sadie doesn't like lemonade. So our options were a little limited for drinks. I didn't want to do juice or punch because of staining. Sadie does love chocolate milk. So I thought we'd give strawberry milk a try. It was a hit! I think each of the girls downed at least two glasses, if not three! he!he! So that was a treat!

We ordered some pre-made sandwiches for the adults with chips and Salado Punch. Easy peasy! Have you ever had Salado Punch? It's the punch we grew up with around Troy....proms, wedding showers, etc. It's the perfect southern punch. I love it, was craving it (Do all breastfeeding mothers crave punches or just me? I was so thirsty all the time!), and therefore decided to make it! Here's the recipe if you'd like it:

1 cup lemon juice

4 cups sugar (yes, that's FOUR cups! it's sweet!)

2 quarts water

2 cups water with 1 family-size tea bag (make a very strong tea)

2 Tbs vanilla

4 Tbs almond extract

4 liters of ginger ale

Stir all ingredients except ginger ale together and place in a 1 gallon freezer bag. Freeze. When ready to serve, let stand about 1 hour until slushy. Add ginger ale. This serves about 30-40 people.

Party Favors:

We made up little take home bags for each girl, and they got to take their newly and fashionably decorated straw hats, their decorated tea cup pictures with leftover stickers, some Fancy Nancy and tea cup coloring pages (my mom mailed to Sadie to use for party favors), and some decorated tea pitcher sugar cookies.