Fif-TEA-eth Surprise Party

Sorry for the grainy picture. I don't know how to use my camera yet.

One of the reasons my blog posts have been few and far between lately, is that a lot of my time and energy was focused on a surprise 50th birthday celebration I was helping throw for my wonderful MIL.

The planning crew, which included SIL M and AIL, decided the theme would be "Tea Party". There's this wonderful restaurant near our place called "The Tea Room" which MIL frequents and loves, so we ran with that idea.

The hardest part of the planning process was not accidentally slipping about the party! I sooo wanted to post pictures of the invitations and some ideas we had, but I know she reads this blog!

The party was a complete success and we all had a wonderful time wearing pearls and eating little desserts.

Any words I write won't do the party justice, so I've compiled a few of my favorite pictures:

Picture of the invitation.  I made a little pocket to insert a real tea bag with each invite.

 

We made a few poms to hang around the room. 

In hindsight, I wish I spent a little more time on the banner.  This was one of the last projects we worked on the night before the party.

 We bought teapots and pearl necklaces to use for centerpieces.

 

 We had four tables, and since there are 4 kids in the family, we named each table after each of them.  There were escort cards to direct people to whichever table they were assigned to.

Sorry for the sad picture of the escort cards.  By the time I got around to taking the picture, most of them were gone!

A dear friend, L, let us borrow her beautiful teacup collection, so each guest had their own teacup!

And of course, there had to be a photobooth! All the guests took turns taking pictures with the guest of honor at the photobooth. 

My mom and I had decided to take a few pictures together while waiting for the guest of honor to arrive.

Here's another silly one with me and SIL M!

 All the pictures from the photobooth, will be printed and pasted into the beautiful scrapbook SIL M created.  All the guests were also requested to write a message to be included in the scrapbook.

Dessert buffet -- yum!!!

 One of the games SIL M came up with we called "What's my Flavor?" in which we passed around unmarked teabags and had each guest guess what tea flavor it was just by smelling it.  The person with the most correct won a prize.  The game was a lot harder than it sounds.

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We all had a great time and my wonderful MIL was truly surprised!

Sneak Peek: Lilac Baptism

Remember the inspiration board I was working on last month for CIL J's daughter's baptism?  Well, the party is this weekend and I'm really excited but at the same time kinda nervous.  I hope my ideas are received well and CIL J isn't disappointed!

Last week during the few hours I have between dinner and bed time, I worked on finishing the centerpiece details and other decoration ideas.  It was a lot of work, but I had a really fun time shopping at Michael's and creating something out of nothing.  All I have left to do this week are the favors - woohoo!

I'll definitely post pictures after the event is over, but for now, here's a little sneak peak*:

*sorry for the poor quality camera phone images

Thursday Mashup!

If you could see all the blogs I subscribe to on my Google Reader, you would probably think I was crazy. I have blog feeds ranging from funny animal pictures (ihasahotdog.com) to news about the latest in speech therapy (there was a time in my life when I wanted to be a speech therapist... still kinda do). I always have 1000+ unread items (which tends to stress me out) but I can't bear to unsubscribe to any of them.

Anyway, when I come across any posts that I find amusing/cool/weird/awesome, I usually email them to Matthew... but I thought, hey, maybe I should post some of my finds here.

Introducing: Thursday Mashup!

Every week, I will share a few posts about food, shopping, celebrities, babies, parties, crafts, or random news, that I find noteworthy. It's a mashup of all things I love.


Food:

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This grilled banana sandwich looks absolutely mouth watering! Caitlin, from Healthy Tipping Point, always has great recipes to share. Seeing her posts definitely inspire me to be healthier (I'm eating a salad as we speak - go me!). She shows you how you can be healthy but still eat delicious food!

Shopping:

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I know it's summer, but check out this cute umbrella necklace from Etsy seller pear22! I likey! I usually hate it when it rains (rain = bad traffic and wet toes), but the one silver lining when it pours is the opportunity to bring out cute umbrellas! With this umbrella, however, you can use it rain or shine!

Celebrities:

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Well, my favorite celebrity gossip, Perez Hilton, usually breaks the news first, but I heard this one last week! My hubs loves Kim Kardashian (yeah, I don't get it either - she's hideous right? just kidding. She's absolutely gorg!) and was happy when she broke up with Reggie Bush. Rumor has it she has a new athlete beau - Miles Austin from the Dallas Cowboys. He's cute... but I think I like Reggie better. Either way, wonder if Miles will be making a cameo on the upcoming season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians (one of my many TV guilty pleasures)??

Parties:

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Ummmm... I think my head exploded when I saw this uber cute nautical themed baby shower on The Celebration Shoppe. I love everything from the red and blue color palette to the mini banner decorating the cupcake stand! It really is the little details that can turn a party into a real celebration.

Random News:

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Has anyone ever heard of or participated in baby races?! I have never heard such of a thing until a few days ago... but what the heck?! I mean, it is pretty darn cute to see babies crawling... but I didn't think anyone would turn it into a competition! Here's a video of adorable babies from Russia racing:

That's all for this week... do you have any cool posts you want to share? I'd love to learn about new blogs!