Holiday Tea

This week has been crazy busy.... Well this Christmas season has been busy and it is not over yet.

Last year I went to a Holiday Tea with our church and fell in love with the concept. So I was excited to find out that they were going to do it again. I asked Noel if I could buy a table. Noel told me that I could. You see our Holiday Tea is a time for the creative person to come out. You can decorate a table for 10 people with whatever theme you have and you put the place settings out and have a small gift for the person who comes. I bought the table and immediately called my mother to help me. Our theme for our table was snowmen because my mother's collection is great.

So a month and a half ago we decided on the theme and started to collect the items that we needed. 10 place settings (plate, silverware, water glass, tea cups/coffee cups, napkins, tablecloth), creamer, and three dishes for tea and sugar. Kerri also wanted to help and so she contributed her snowmen plates/mugs to help with the 10 place settings.

A week before the tea we decided on what gift we were going to do for our guests. We decided that we would make champagne truffles, and then also have sugared almonds on the table. We went to Wal-mart to get a great tablecloth we saw in their flyer to find out that they did not have what we needed. So we had to go to Hobby Lobby and pick out fabric. We made the tablecloth and the napkins for the table.

A couple of days before the tea we made the final adjustments and made sure that we had everything. The day before Noel had volunteered to help with the setup of the church. He was there from 4pm until 2am the next morning. The day before my mother and I made the gifts for the table. The sugar almonds turned out fabulous and the champagne truffles turned out after we adapted the instructions.

The day of the tea mom and I went to the church and decorated our table in the afternoon. We figured out that we needed to bring lemons, honey, I forgot one place card, and we decided that we would bring sugar instead of having the single packets.

Here is what our table looked liked after we finished decorating it.



We were proud of our table. That night the place looked amazing. Each table with a different theme and with different ideas about what they wanted for their table. It was great to see people's china and the Mad Hatter's Table as well. The people that I invited to the tea thought it was great and I think that everyone had a great time. All the work was worth it and I hope to be able to have this opportunity next year. I have a feeling that I might need 2 tables next year instead of just one. We will see.

Enjoy the slide show, I took some pictures of other tables so that you would get the idea of the work that went into the table. Also the food was great.

This post would not be complete if I did not put a picture of Phil Coffman doing a great job with a flashlight after the tea. He worked really hard along with Ryan Carrell and Daryl Tripp.

Happy Birthday Ben

It has been another year and my brother is getting closer and closer to 30! My brother turned 28 today but it is not another year for him, because this year he found out that he and his wife are expecting a baby next year.

The "safari" wanted to say happy birthday. They have been practicing almost all week and I think they did a great job. Of course there has to be someone that decides not to participate and that was Joshua. The good thing is that next year he will have his own child to wish him a happy birthday, maybe with a hug and a kiss and not words.



Happy birthday and I hope that you have a wonderful day.

Lets Decorate our Tree!

It is so neat to see our "safari" grow up. This is the first year that they helped put the Christmas tree together.

Noel took the Christmas tree out of the attic and we brought it downstairs. The next morning the "safari" saw the boxes and were automatically excited about whatever was in the boxes. We told them that we were going to put that tree up later.

While the "safari" was eating lunch Noel and I put the tree together. After lunch we started to decorate the tree. At first they did not understand that the ornaments were for the tree and not for them to play with. They enjoyed putting the ornaments on the tree. We will see how it will be for the next month with getting them to stay away from the tree and not to touch the ornaments.

Nana was excited to help because she is not putting her tree up this year. My mom and dad are going on a cruise in December and will not be in their house for very long before Christmas. So this was a nice opportunity for Nana to help decorate a tree since they are not putting one up.

Here are a few pictures of the "safari" putting their first ornaments on the our Christmas tree. We are also excited about our Jesse tree as well.