Christmas Tea Parties and the Elf *Kurt*

Yesterday Elliott hosted her first Christmas Tea Party.  We got the idea from her friend Elizabeth, Elliott and Berkley went to the Third Annual St. Nicholas Tea Party hosted by Elizabeth and her Grandma last weekend.  They both love it and look forward to it every year.  Elliott has been asking to have her own tea party for years I think.  I thought now that she is in school it would  be fun to try to start one of our own for Christmas.  Its fun for her since she has a summer birthday and doesn't get to pass out invitations at school and get all pumped up with her friends. 

She really wanted to invite all the girls in her class (12 of them!) plus our neighbors Gracie and Ellen and her friend Madilyn.  I was a little nervous about such a big tea party, and wouldn't you know EVERYONE could come! She was so excited!  I wish I had more pictures of the setup- unfortunately I was running around up until they all arrived.  We had early release from school yesterday- so it was right after school.  I took a bunch of video at the party, got the setup and all the decorations on there and when we sat down to watch it last night it was blank! I still don't understand how it happened, I ran out of tape at one point and switched it- so we have a little bit of freeze dancing on there and that is it :-(

These are the Rudolph cupcakes Elliott made for a snack.  She actually put them together all by herself!

 The elf also surprised her with a tea pot that morning. She was so excited because we didn't have one and were just going to use our lemonade pitcher.  She practiced how to pour the tea (like Elizabeth always does at her tea party) as she was walking out of the room to put it on the table she said "This is my first time to handle a tea pot!" She was SO excited to fill up everyones glasses.  I should have taken pictures- but I was closely supervising.

 We had 8 kids at the dining room table and another 8 at the table by the windows!

 After they had tea and snacks they decorated cookies to take home

 Berkley enjoyed her cupcake a lot!  She also told Chris and my mom that decorating cookies was too hard and she wasn't good at it so she went upstairs. So sad! I was too busy to even know she was having trouble.

 After cookies they made bottle cap necklaces.  They made one to keep and one to play hot potato and trade.  Some girls didn't want to trade theirs- I felt kind of mean making them give me bottle caps to sit down and play the game, but ya gotta pay the price right? The whole game/trade thing was Elliott's idea.

 The whole crazy group

 Here's some catch-up pictures

We went to see Santa over Thanksgiving break. This is them waiting when it was finally their turn

 Elliott making invitations for her Tea Party

 These are from last weekend before Elizabeth and her Grandmas Tea Party

 It was Home Depot Saturday so daddy took them to build something before we headed to the Tea Party. Elliott has been going since the month Berkley was born. Berkley has been going for the last several months. Usually I go and help Berkley, although my "help" isn't that great, Chris has to undo some mistakes for me sometimes....With Patton being here soon he's going to be taking both girls and building all by himself from now on, which is probably better for him anyway ;-)

 Elizabeth and Elliott have been friends since they were tiny babies, they live in Fort Worth so we don't get to see them as much as we used to, but we still get together often.

Playing Christmas Bingo

 We have a very special Elf that visits us.  Our children are extremely spoiled. Kurt starts coming on December 1st each year and he likes to bring little treats with him every day.  Some days its a piece of gum, a sucker, a little piece of candy....Other days its cool stuff like bracelets, Christmas clothes, crafts.  Every morning they wake up and check their tiny elf stockings.  Some days when he brings them big things they get a hunt, which Elliott loves. This year Elliott has been reading the clues and doing the whole thing without help from us.  It was so funny because one of the clues was "A place where a baby can sleep"  We were brainstorming places to check, Patton's Bed, the pack n play, Berkley's room.  Berkley got furious yelling that a baby was NOT going to sleep in her room. Over and over. It was pretty funny how mad she was about the thought of a baby sleeping in her room. It should be fun when Patton is here.....

 That elf is so silly- he hid their Christmas PJ's in the freezer!