A Birthday Tea Party

Brynne turned eight years old on Thursday and on Friday afternoon I had a birthday tea party in her honor for her and seven of her friends.  I gave an identical party for Blythe when she turned eight.  In true Brynne fashion I heard her whining last week that, "It isn't fair that I have to have the same party as Blythe."  I told her it was perfectly fair and that's why I was doing it. Then I thought maybe it isn't fair because she didn't get to chose the kind of party she wanted, but then I remembered that Blythe didn't get to choose either.  It was my idea originally to have a tea party.  I checked with Brynne after the party and she actually had a good time and was glad after all that I'd forced her to have a tea party.  Here's how the party unfolded. . . . 

This is the table set for the party.

(I only have four chairs so I had to borrow 

four from Brittney.)

This is the place setting.  Each of the girls got to keep

the tea cup that was at her place.  For their first

activity the girls decorated their place cards with stickers.

This is the food I served.

I also had some dainty sandwiches not pictured.

The girls had lemonade to drink, not tea. 

This is the birthday cake.

It is filled with seedless boysenberry jam, fresh

raspberries and whipped cream.

It is supposed to be a Victoria Sponge cake per

Nigella Lawson (a noted British cook) but I 

used a cake mix instead of her from scratch recipe.

It was for little girls after all.

This is the girls tying ribbons onto hair elastics for one 

of their craft projects.  Brynne was the speediest because

she had had practice doing the two sample ones for me.

This is the girls dressing and decorating their paper dolls.

This is the birthday girl decorating her sugar cookie.

This is my niece Hannah showing off her finished cookie.

These are all the girls ready for their tea party

and on their best behavior.

This is Brynne with her lighted birthday cake.

This is all the girls wearing their white gloves after

they got crazy and silly.  Fortunately, the party was

almost over by then.

This party would not have been a success without the help of my two trusty assistants Brittney and Blythe.  Britt wrapped up all the sugar cookies that were dripping in frosting so that the girls could take them home and washed the tea cups and wrapped them in tissue paper and put all the craft projects into their favor bags, etc.  Blythe ran various errands for me and helped serve the food.  A big thanks also goes to my Mom for babysitting Barrett, James and Ruby and for providing the daffodils from her yard for the table centerpiece.