Royal Tea Party

As she usually does, when we left Grandma's house recently, Hope picked a toy from her bedroom there to bring home with her. This time it was a tea set. No matter that she already has a tea set at our house! Anyway, when she saw it the next morning she sighed deeply and said, "Seeing that tea set makes me miss Grandma." Luckily, it turned out that Grandma was able to come by that afternoon for a royal tea.

The food was whatever I happened to have in the freezer - nothing special. But Hope was eager for every royal guest to look and act the part. So when "her highness, the royal Queen of Howard County" arrived, Hope outfitted her with a crown, scarf, and Grant's miniature tie :)

We were pleasantly surprised that Grandpa was able to come to our tea on his lunch break. We are slightly lacking on boy dress-up clothes, but Hope did manage to find this bow tie and fur collar for his highness the King.

Grant wasn't too keen on wearing his dress pants, shirt, and vest. We managed to get him to play along, though, and boy did he look CUTE. I dug an old ball gown and my wedding pearls out of hiding, and when Hope gave me the finishing touch - a blue plastic tiara - she declared that I was "so beautiful!" And I think to her, I really was. I hope I'll never forget how important that is.

 Well, our "tea" consisted of some random cakes, berries, popcorn, casserole, and pear. Most notably we held our pinkies out, called each other "darling," and sat around the table according to the place cards Hope made for us. The decorum melted pretty quickly though, and ended with Grant on my shoulders, chasing Hope on Grandpa's shoulders all around the room. But ... we still had our tiaras and bow ties on, dahling.