Mother's Day Weekend - The Tea

It has become somewhat of a tradition at our church to have a Mother/Daughter Tea the weekend of Mother's Day. This year I was planning to attend and to take Little with me. . . then I got the call. One of the women on the council with me, the one planning the event, called to ask if Little AND KB could participate in the fashion show portion of the tea. I said sure before I thought through just what that would mean for the entirety of the event. I actually didn't give that any thought until the Thursday before when I was telling my mother about our plans and her response was something along the lines of, "Are you insane???"

Still, Saturday morning we got up and dressed for tea:

We sent our men off for some "Man Time". . .

And gave our tickets at the door:

Many men from the church had volunteered to be servers:

(I felt guilty every time I asked Mr. Botts for anything)

There was, of course, hot tea. The girls LOVED it. Each of them had four or five cups. . . with milk and sugar.

It was fun to teach them both to stir their tea gently and lay their spoons on the plate. KB loved being all dainty with her cup. Little just LOVED drinking the tea. Each tea pot that was brought to our table was a different form. Our first was a large woman in an apron. Then there was a mouse and the tea came out of his basket. . . one with snowflakes . . . and one with a famous painting recreated around it's circumference.

The theme was "Mothers - the Same in Any Language". Graham shared about how her mother opened her arms to let her go for two years mission work in Thailand.

Andrea shared about how the Lord worked in her to open her arms to welcome in a little girl from China and prepared her for the special needs Hannah would have (deaf).

Then there was the fashion show. Little walked in with Mrs. Pat - China and Japan, ironically, walking hand in hand through the gym. Little did GREAT. She walked with her head held high and a smile on her face. She seemed so grown up. *sigh*
KB was also accompanied by a woman in a kimono! KB did not act as grown up but stomped joyfully through the crowd, waved her Japanese flag (?), and waved at a couple people she recognized. I don't know where she gets all that personality!
My Chinese dolls:
Between making sure no dishes were broken, filling and refilling the girls'plates, taking KB to the bathroom, changing their clothes for the fashion show and keeping KB in her seat when she saw Libby across the crowd ("It's Libby! Hey Libby! It's me - Katie Bly!) - I was a wreck when the tea ended. The girls had a wonderful time and memories were made. I love being their mommy.