The kids' school, Gingerbread, as a lovely tradition of hosting an end of the year mother's day tea party. It's totally darling--the little ones seat us and introduce us and serve us first (having practiced all this for weeks!) and sing to us. It's so special for both of us--we get all dressed up, and I got to take each of them out for a lunch date afterwards, to the place of their choosing. It was really, really special and fun.
Phin John took this self-portrait at the tea party while we were waiting for everyone to get seated--I love that you can see his first lost tooth in there!
And here are Samara and I at her tea party! They sing this darling song about a daisy and then they ceremoniously present each of us with a daisy--both kids put it in my hair and I wore it there all day. I love that part of the tradition. I also always let the kids pick out my outfit--I lay out a few options on my bed and they pick their favorite (and for Samara, she helped with the jewelry, too!). It's fun that for one day my little ones kind of care what I'm wearing--the boys are especially cute about it.
The fun thing is that I get to pick their outfit, too! Well, kind of--Phin John has one nice button-down shirt, so that was it. And for Samara, I made this little dress the night before. It's a prototype of the flower girl dress she'll be wearing for Aunt Hannah's wedding and so I thought a run-through would be helpful before I cut out the real thing. And it was! I finished it up and realized it was about 6 inches too big around the chest, so I had to sneak up to Samara's closet while she was sleeping to find a dress I know fits her well and then I used that to try to re-size this dress. It worked out okay, but the next one will be a lot better! I tried to get some good pictures so Aunt Hannah could see how it looks, but she wasn't super-cooperative...
She got to wear her pearl necklace from Shelby's wedding. This was a highlight.
We tried to get a picture of the two of us, and this was about the best we got--she loves to be tickle-kissed.
And here was our attempt at showing the "twirly factor"--it's a good one!
Hope you like it, Aunt Hannah!
A note on the fabric: The top part is a handkerchief weight linen and the bottom was a piece Matt's cousin Sara passed along to me--I think it's an Anna Maria Horner print. There was only a yard, and I needed more than that, so it's kind of patch-worked under there a little...there are only little bits left on the floor! Thanks, Sara!