A Fairy Tea Party {Abby is 4}

When I asked Abby Grace what kind of a birthday party she wanted to have this year, her response was...

"I want you to get REAL wings so that me and my friends can REALLY fly like fairies!"

I did my best, but a miracle worker, I am not!

But wings... there WERE wings!  
And tutu's.
And tiny fairy gardens in tea cups.
And a fairy treasure hunt.
And a whole lot of cute little girls!

Including the birthday fairy herself...

I needed a good excuse to visit the antique mall and Abby's fairy tea party was the perfect excuse to go hunting for antique tea cups and other treasures!  The fairy tea party table was fun to put together...lots of flowers and miniature fairy gardens inside teacups served as the main centerpieces of the table decor.

When the party guests arrived, Abby gave them each a fairy costume to put on so they could be transformed into flower fairies...

With wings in place and tutu's to boot, the fairies grabbed a basket and set off on a treasure hunt in search of things all good fairies need...

Like magic wands...

And dew drops...

And butterfly rings...

And necklaces...

And last but not least, magic fairy potions...

Next up... painting fairy houses...

Games included "pass the fairy surprise package" and "musical lillipad leap"...

And then it was time for tea!  My favorite part of tea parties are the little sandwiches and fancy foods...

 

 And the teapots and teacups, of course!  

And best of all, the pinky finger lifted when the littles drink their tea!

The cupcakes were baked inside little teacups and were almost too pretty to eat.

Abby and her fairy friends finished the party be singing "Happy Birthday" and because I forgot the candles (oops!) for her to blow out, they all took a ceremonial sip of tea to toast the birthday fairy turning FOUR!

Happy Birthday sweet Abby Grace!

I hope all your fairy flying dreams come true!

One {An unfinished post from 2013}

{I was looking through my "drafts" in my blogger account and came across this one.  I started it TWO YEARS AGO as I tried to pen my thoughts about Abby turning one.  I was having such a hard time reconciling my emotions and thoughts on her turning one.  I thought she would likely be my last "one year old" birthday celebration and I just couldn't find the right words to describe that feeling.  So I started to write about her turning one, but never finished.  Two years later, even if it's unfinished, I thought I should post what I did write.  It's just another bitter sweet reminder of how quickly life passes!  And that cute baby... how could I NOT post pictures of that precious baby!  I remember taking these pictures in her room "like it was yesterday".  Sigh.}

How did this happen?

Well, it actually happened over three months ago, but the fact that I'm just now posting about it seems par for the course in the "how did this happen" mystery of time going by too quickly.

On February 16th, our baby girl dawned a special crown dubbing her Queen of the Holtzman Household as we celebrated the momentous occasion of her turning ONE.

ONE.

How that happened, I'm not quite sure.

I can still remember so vividly preparing for her birth.  Painting the room, dressing the crib in the newly made bedding, filling the dresser drawers with itty bitty diapers and sleepers, putting the rocking chair in place for the many late night nursing sessions, anticipating her birth with a bit of anxiety and a lot of excitement.  

I remember it all.

It doesn't seem possible that it happened a year ago.

I remember the day she was born like it yesterday.  I remember how she looked and felt, the excitement exhibited by her big siblings when they saw her for the first time, the tiny clothes lining her drawers and closet, the way I could hold her cradled in one arm, how she nursed so easily and how desperately I wanted to hold on to those days and savor every second of her newness knowing that in the blink of an eye, I would be here.  

Wondering how a year has come and gone.  Feeling sad and guilty that I didn't savor it more.  And noticing that my tiny baby now resembles more of a toddler who walks, tries to talk, and tries to keep up with her older siblings as much as she possibly can. 

How did this happen?

Time just happened.  Kids went to school, had activities, celebrated birthdays.  We went on vacations and Vance worked more and I volunteered for too many things.  Life happened.


And now our baby is ONE.

And she is a delightful ONE.

After overcoming her colic at around 6 months, she became a sweet smiling sister.  Her big chocolate drop eyes melt me and her big grin is infectious.  

At ONE, she seems to favor her big brother most among her other siblings.  Molly is her biggest threat and I pray for the days I will see the two of them dancing around my living room in dress up costumes.  She talks and has several words mastered, loves to change her shoes, refuses to drink milk and is kept hydrated by pouched applesauce and pouches of expensive organic food, reads books to put herself to sleep for her nap, has a white softie that she chews on the edges of, has a lot of teeth, CURLY brown hair and a big belly, blows kisses to everyone when she goes to bed at night, is kind of rough, attempts somersaults on her own, and is my first climber!

DONUT You Know? Abby is 3!

I DONUT know how it happened, but my "little brown one" turned THREE on Monday.  

THREE!

How can it be?!

I've decided that the more children you have, the faster time goes without you even realizing it.  In my mind, Abby Grace was "just born"!

But she wasn't.  She was born THREE years ago!  

And so she had her three year old rite of passage...

her first birthday party with FRIENDS!

And for her first friend birthday party, we chose a DONUT theme!  Abby loves donuts and spends every Saturday morning going to get donuts with her daddy.  One of her favorite Christmas gifts was a stacking donut game.  When she opened it, she squealed with delight and said "Daddy made me donuts"!  So we had donut cake, donut pops, donut cookies and more donuts... a menu full of DONUTS!

I hope I don't give her a food complex when she grows up since this is the 2nd year in a row she has had a food themed party (last year was French Fries)!  But honestly, how fun is this DONUT theme?!

 

This was a super quick and easy party set up.  There are several free donut printables online that made up the majority of the decorations.  I wanted to make the donut balloons that I saw on Pinterest, but I ran out of time so we settled for regular balloons instead.  But scrapbook paper and donut printables made for a cute and colorful table display.

Since I was dealing with 3 year olds, we kept the guest list small  and manageable.  And we had to keep the activities at a preschool level.  I wanted to do the "donut on a string" game, but I quickly scrapped that idea once I saw how messy a few of the other games were! 

We started off the party by making play-do donuts and coloring some donut color pages.  The girls used donut pans to make play-do donuts and used beads for the "sprinkle" decorations.  

 Next up was the donut walk!

And then I got brave - REALLY brave - and broke out the PAINT!  The girls made paper plate donuts and decorated them with tiny pom poms.  

And in case the girls weren't messy enough from the paint, I took it a step further and added in a mix of glue and sprinkles!  They decorated their own chef hats and wrote their names on them in sprinkles!

Next up was the Bean Bag Toss through a GIANT donut!  And then the girls just jumped on and rolled across and played all kinds of things with this GIANT donut!

And then it was time for SUGAR!  Donut sugar!

And Abby blew out her THREE candles!

And she chowed down on her donuts!

And then sweet Abby opened up her presents and very shyly and very quietly and very sweetly thanked her friends.

After present opening was complete, the 3 year olds disrobed and began doing what 3 year old girls do... DRESS UP! So Abby (aka Tinkerbell) handed out her party favors which were filled with cute donut treats.  Favors boxes are always one of my favorite parts about birthday parties. Not because I think the other children need a gift so that don't feel "left out", but because they are just too fun to put together and the birthday girl always enjoys handing them out!

The take out boxes included a donut cookie, scratch & sniff donut stickers, a donut bracelet, set of 3 "donut crayons" and a donut hair clip!  And of course, they had to take some donuts home too.  The little sacks had powdered donuts inside.

When it was all over, Abby looked at me with her big brown chocolate eyes and said...

"Now we do my birthday party all over again?"

I think that meant she had fun!

HAPPY #3 ABBY GRACE!

She is still working on getting those three little fingers to work together to show her new age! THREE is a tough one!

We love you...

you sweet and ornery and feisty and silly 

and strong and sneaky and funny and lovable 

THREE year old!