A Tea Party Birthday for Emily Rose

Emily Rose is so blessed to have another birthday. We are so blessed to have her.

Here are some of the highlights from the birthday party.

Each girl wore a pretty dress and the apron we gave her. They brought their mother and a favorite doll or stuffed animal.
CeCe the kitten was the butler Forest was her assistant. They answered the door and politely invited the ladies into the parlor. CeCe was also the "doll" that Forest brought to the party. Even though Forest isn't a girl, he is part of the family, and got to take part in the party. He even consented to dress nicely for the occasion, though he couldn't understand why he should.

CeCe sat very nicely with some of the dolls and stuffed animals to get her photo taken. while we went off to play the first game of the party called Halt. I found it at a wonderful web site full of themed games for children's tea parties. It was an alphebet game where you had to think of items in five catagories that starated with a certain letter of the alphabet. We chose categories sligtly different then those suggested by the web site to fit the interests of the girls: flower, fruit, color, place, song. You earn points for having an answer different from other people.Next we played Musical Teddy Chairs, with directions on the same web site. Instead of the children sitting on the chairs, the doll or stuffed animal sat on the chairs. CeCe cooperated and did a good job as Forest's teddy cat.

The third game we played was a relay race with little bowls of beads. You hold your doll with one hand, and scoop beads onto a spoon with the other hand. You move the beads to a bowl on the finish line, then give the spoon to the next player on your team. It took four moms to keep up with the spilled beads that had to be moved back to the starting line bowls.
We had two crafts. One was to cut out an old fashioned paper doll and her dress. I thought it was appropriate that she was holding a doll in her arm.
The other was to make sachets.Each child put some lilac scented potpourri into little squares of purple sparkle netting that was secured with ribbon. They got to take home their own sachet to sweetly scent their drawers.
Then it was time for tea. Each girl was so sweet and polite at the table without being reminded. There was a place card for each person. Everyone had a different pretty tea cup to sip herbal tea or fresh apple cider if they preferred. The tea was my homemade blend with spearmint, peppermint, lemon balm, chamomile, nettle, red raspberry and hibiscus, Emily Rose tried to choose a tea cup for each person that they would especially enjoy. We served delicious Thumb-print Almond Date Cookies, a platter of red grapes and Mandarin orange sections, and cucumber slices topped with Sunflower Almond Pate'.

The birthday mini cupcakes were a success. They are called Impossibly Delicious Gluten Free/ Vegan Cupcakes. We only put 1/3 of the sugar in the frosting and they were delicious. We flavored both the cup cakes and the frosting with orange extract. What a yummy treat. They have more oil, sugar and processed foods in them then we normally use, but I guess I call it the birthday exception.

Happy Birthday, Emily Rose. It's a joy to be your mother!