Our Birthday Tea Party!

To celebrate the birthdays of all three girls, we had a tea slumber party. We invited my brother Harold's girls, Yazi and Ari, and my sister Yvonne's girls, Sophie and Mila. There is probably nothing more exciting for my girls than to play with their cousins--they are their best friends.

We made sure that everyone was dressed in appropriate princess attire and that Tchaikovsky was playing in the background. We then started with the first course of the afternoon tea which was PB & J butterfly sandwiches, cucumber heart sandwiches, egg salad flower sandwiches, mini chicken croissant sandwiches and carrot sticks and grapes. The PB & J were of course the favorite! This was accompanied by blueberry and raspberry tea sweetened with agave. For the next course, warm lemon poppy seed and orange cranberry scones were served with cream, raspberry jam, lemon curd and more tea. The girls loved putting the agave and milk in their tea!

When everyone was finished, the girls started some wonderful impromptu dancing! "Sleeping Beauty" was playing and they just wanted to twirl! It was so nice to watch. My mom used to dance with them and taught them some cute dancing they've not forgotten. It felt like she was with us. This went on for about 30 minutes!

Afterwards, we had a little flower hunt. I had tied notes to various flowers in the yard and each note gave a clue for the next one to find. It was so cute, most of the girls can read now and they each took turns reading a clue. The hunt led us ultimately to our orange tree (that smells wonderful!) and that is where we found our butterfly necklaces hanging for each girl!

By this time, it was getting chilly so we decided to go inside for our yogurt birthday "cheesecake." The girls had begged me to make it-- I had made it last year for Ceci's birthday. (If you'd like the recipe, click here.) I made each of the birthday girls their own little one and we sang to each of them and let them blow out their candles.

Getting ready for our Birthday Party!

So tomorrow we're going to have a Birthday Tea Slumber Party with our (local) girl cousins!  (We have to miss out on Summer who is in Japan.)  To get ready, I had the girls do some water coloring to make crowns for their cousins.  I thought they came out so beautifully, it was hard to cut them!  We also made these little felt butterfly necklaces to give to each guest!  

Happy Spring!!

I haven't blogged lately because we've been really sick around here. Every single one of us has had a nasty and lingering cold. All the girls have had ear aches, fevers and barking coughs. (Not very fun stuff to blog about!) We've been really tired. But although we're all still recovering, we can't help but acknowledge the beautiful warm weather we've been having and the spring fever we've been feeling!!

Today, the girls and I did some fun planting. For our back porch, we planted some thyme and some geraniums just for this super cute gnome and mushrooms to hang out in! We love it!

One of our favorite songs has been ringing through my ears:


Spring is coming spring is coming
Birdies build your nest!
Weave together straw and feather
Doing each your best.

Spring is coming spring is coming
Flowers are coming too.
Pansies, lilies, daffodilies
Now are coming through!

Spring is coming spring is coming
All around is fair
Shimmer, glimmer on the meadow
Joy is everywhere!







On our patio, we planted some impatiens in the shade. The girls were so capable. We planted while listening to Cat Stevens. It was really fun and we're excited to make our yard prettier.

I have some more blog catching up to do-- We had a really nice St. Patrick's day and Lala and Bella had their parade and play at the Armory last night. Hopefully, soon!

Bella's Play "The Treasure"

Bella was in another awesome play. She LOVES her drama class and her teacher. They again created their own roles and worked with their teacher to create the script from a story she told them. They also made their own scenery and costumes again. Bella was a dog named Bone! She did a great job--no problems with her lines! The story was very cute about a mother and her daughter who had to leave their home for the palace in search of a treasure only to learn that there was actually a treasure buried at their own home! But they had to find that information from a soldier at the palace. In the end, they shared their treasure with everyone who helped them! We were all very proud of Bella! I was glad that Grandpa could come.

We went out to dinner at the Blue Hen to celebrate the girls accomplishments. For Spring, Bella and Lala are both going to take drama together!

Lala's Parade at the Armory

So Lala was in a class this semester called "Let's have a Parade." Each week they worked to make hats, costumes, drums, etc. It was a small class, (only 4 kids total!) but it was still a very cute parade. They paraded through the big room of the Armory through the various classes. We watched from the balcony. I LOVED how Lala beat on her little oatmeal box-drum! She was so shy! It ended in about 3 minutes, but it was super-cute. They went right in to the room where Bella's play was about to start!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We had such a wonderful St. Patrick's day! The girls wore their tie dye's because it was all they had with green! For school, I told the story of St. Patrick to them and then they drew pictures of him. Even though we have been quite under the weather, (not contagious, just tired) we couldn't miss going to our home school park day because there were some really fun things planned. One of the mom's had organized a little clover hunt. She made a map of our park and we had to find the variously placed clovers where there were stickers to put on our maps to show we'd found the clover. (Did that make sense?) Anyways, it was really fun. The girls really enjoyed it. And once they found all the clovers, they got to go to "the end of the rainbow" and get a treat and some coins from the pot of gold. We all brought green treats to share and the most delicious was the guacamole my friend Lisa made. YUM!