Happy Birthday, Bethany

She is almost nine.
A very wise aunt told me that the first five years of motherhood drag by at a snail's pace. And then VROOM! Time starts flying. That is exactly how I feel.
Last night we had Bethany's tea party birthday party.
















The preparations were intense. We had outfits picked and laid out 48 hours early.














Beds were made and rooms were cleaned.















The food was prepared and the table was laid.
Bethany decided she wanted to do a tea party and use her Great-Grandma, Beth Clark's, fancy tea cups. (Beth Clark was my maternal grandmother) She passed away in 1985 and somehow I ended up with her china and her collection of tea cups. I don't know much about how the cups were collected. Did she collect them over many years during travels? Or did she acquire them all at once? I wish I knew.
There are 17 of them, all beautiful and all different. We don't get them out very often so it is very special when we do. We got a recipe for delicious tea cakes from Aunt Amy (Abe's sister-in-law). The invitations were sent out and the very well dressed guests arrived.
They were all delightfully behaved little ladies who were brave enough to try herbal tea before having hot chocolate.













Bethany and Elinor loved having Abe serve as "Jeeves" for the evening.















This was the most impressive part of the evening. Clark and his friend London were the hardest working, most polite gentlemen you could imagine. They answered the door, took coats, offered all the food and quickly came when any of the ladies called them.
Now I should mention, that all the ladies were given ample monopoly money that they could tip the servers with when they did a good job. At the end of the evening both boys could trade their monopoly money for real money. ($5 each) Well worth it!
Mostly I was just impressed that these boys would be such good sports and play the part so well. What a fun memory for everyone.
After the tea party portion of the evening the girls all made shrinky-dink necklaces.
Everyone seemed to have a fun time, which is the goal.













But here was a sad little girl when it was all said and done. It's Faith, just in case you can't tell because of the face distortions.
It is a hard thing to be the youngest of three sisters, who all have birthday's within a month of each other, and yours is last. Faith has one week till her birthday and it is a sad thing to have to wait for your presents while your sisters open theirs. So sad-too bad. Hopefully it'll get easier as the years go on.

Just in case you ever need to buy a gift for a nine year old girl. Nail polish was the most popular gift and the girls couldn't be more pleased.
I've said it before, but I'm thankful for good friends for my children. We are very blessed.