madeline's high tea

today we celebrated miss madeline turning 8! a little early, as her birthday is this week, but seeing as we are having her baptism next weekend, it was just too hard to do it all at once. 

she was so, so excited for the day to come and being that their last day of school for two weeks was yesterday, she's even more so!

she looked so cute (and thrilled to bits!) as we snapped some pictures outside before her friends arrived, thankfully like a little girl still, i'm hoping she stays that way for just a little longer! i looove the oversize flower crown, so i am especially pleased that she agreed to wear it for the day. 

we had the house decorated to the nines, with this chalkboard sign in the entry hall. if you look closing you can see miss maddie waving in the reflection to the left.

i wanted it all to be matching and set up beautifully so i actually hired some tables and chairs from a place in midland, so that i could use my chair covers and have it all uniform (ocd much?) but i was so pleased with how it all came out. the only thing i ended up having to buy was the pink chair sashes, so that's a positive! between mum and i, we have everything you could possibly need for a tea party!

my best friend jen, who makes cookies over at baked on benrua, made these amazing cookies to be placecards for the girls. i love them so much, and the best bit was, she even threw in two extras, stamped with mine and mums names to enjoy during the party.

how cute are they?!

star of the show. what a day she had! every time we have organised a tea party for someone else, she has always asked when she can have one for her friends (definitely her mothers daughter!) so now that she's (nearly) eight and most of her friends are at a similar age, i figured we were probably safe using china for it... and thankfully nothing got broken!

i wanted to do a really vintage style cake, not one of these overdone cakes you see at every party these days, so i bought a two pack of round sponges from woolworths, along with some strawberries, jam and cream. i had planned to just do it into four layers, fill between each one, then top it with some rose buds and a dusting of icing sugar. but then mum turned up and it became a work of art. ladies and gentlemen, my mother is amazing! look what she did with some flowers she bought along from her garden. maddie and i were blown away by how cute it was and the first thing she wanted to show everyone that walked in the door was that gorgeous cake!

almost ready to receive guests... we took our table to pieces and stashed it in alexanders room during the party so we could have a gorgeous long table and chairs.

love love love. i was so happy with how it turned out.

i made crockpot hot chocolate for the girls to have in their teacups and for any of the mums that decided to stay (recipe can be found at the end of this post, we have used it on many occasions, it's delicious and always works perfectly!) 

we also had water and pink lemonade with fresh lemons added

i baked most of the things we had to eat:

-mini blueberry muffins

-brownies

-chocolate truffles

-chocolate chip cookies

-jelly slice

-mini sausage rolls 

(easiest recipe ever, 8 pack of sausages, 2 sheets of puff pastry cut into 4... wrap each sausage and cut to the size you want, then brush with a beaten egg and bake in a 180 degree celcius oven for 30 or so minutes - until brown)

-mini corn fritters

-spinach & ricotta puffs

-egg sandwiches

-macarons (from coles! $8 for 10 and they are delicious, so there is no way i would try and make them for that price... i value my sanity)

the girls all oohed and aahed over the setup when they arrives, loved looking for their place and i absolutely heard one of them exclaim to another whilst drinking out of her teacup, "i just feel so fancy!"

such little ladies

after they finished their afternoon tea, we took some photos with props, which involved a lot of giggling and noise, then played pass the parcel, musical bobs and musical statues. oh i love watching them get competitive, it's the best bit. we had a lovely afternoon with them all and madeline was so sad when it was over, one of the girls even cried because she didn't want to leave. 

maddie with her cake! so cliche but i honestly cannot believe that she will be 8 this week. how on earth did that happen?!

loving her life 

happy almost birthday miss madeline. we love you so much!

*******************************************

crock pot hot chocolate

ingredients:
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 x cans sweetened condensed milk 

(just buy the coles/woolworths brand ones- they are exactly the same!)
1/8 teaspoon salt
8 cups water
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
marshmallows to serve

directions:
1.) in crock-pot combine milk, water and vanilla.
2.) add dry cocoa and salt, stir until smooth.
3.) cover and cook on high 2 hours or on low for 4 hrs
4.) top each serving with marshmallows

a day with the girls

friday was a girls (and joseph) day out and about. we hit up a few opshops and found some excellent pieces. i was pretty happy right there... but the afternoon was even better as i had my first visit to lily and the angel in alfred cove. it's a quirky little cafe full of vintage treasures, excellent treats (vegan, gf...) cups of whatever you like and a rack of preloved clothes. what could be better? i found myself a gorgeous dress which mum insisted on paying for, turns out it was so she could take it home. hmmmmm i had better get a turn!

my orange cake and soy hot choc. yummo!

the front of the store is houses a florist as well, so there are lots of lovely flowers surrounding you as you eat and drink and enjoy a chat with the owner who is just gorgeous. i'll definitely be stopping in again next time i'm on my way to fremantle... put it on your list!

emily's bridal shower

this coming thursday is the big day... and today dom and i joined forces again (you can see our first joint effort here) to throw a bridal shower for her sister in law to be, emily! 

it's blossom season here in australia, so i did some branch collecting around the place and ended up with four vases of blossoms that not only looked amazing, but smelt like heaven! the bunting is a mix of lace, satin and calico triangles and is about ten metres long... made by my mum when she and dad were in samoa! it looks amazing all set up!

drinks were simple, with pink lemonade and water with strawberries and mint

the menu was a little more complicated as we catered for gf and df guests, but i think we got it right... there was barely any left over!

gf df brownie muffins (these have been my go to over the last few months - recipe here)

amazing flowers with our feast in the background

we had a few games 

- your earliest memory of emily

- he said, she said, with a video of therons responses... certainly got some giggles from the girls

- how many kisses for the future mrs (guess how many hershey's kisses were in a jar) 

we love you em! i can't wait to watch you become mrs. pinker next week! ♥

emma kate has a high tea!

today the youngest of my nieces miss emma kate turned 6 and had a high tea with her friends from school to celebrate. her lovely mum donna let me help (squeeee, i was in my element...) so i rocked up with my babes and decorated away with my eldest niece laura, (who was conveniently chucking a sickie haha) until em got home from school. i think we did a pretty good job...

us three girls made some treats (and cut up and arranged some sneaky purchases of donnas) to make this spread, which the kids and mums who stayed absolutely loved!

 the little milk bottles were a hit as always, and the kids loved the paper straws... (i am up in the air about paper straws... they look great, but definitely are kind of gross after being in liquid after half a hour or so, you need to make sure you have more than enough on hand to replace them every so often)

drinks station :)

emma had a lovely time, but i must admit i had my concerns about bring her not-even-three-year-old-cousin along to the party that she was having with all her friends, just in case madeline cramped her style a little. but... i was pleasantly surprised to keep hearing emma call, "maddie! maddie! come with me maddie!" and looking out for her all afternoon. what a sweetheart.

laura had also made some flowers from crepe paper for the chair backs which were so adorable. what a good big sister! i am totally keeping her skills in mind next time i want something.

the kids played a few games including musical bobs and statues and pass the parcel (always the favourite... side note, i wonder if kids still try to hang on to the parcel for that little bit longer so they can unwrap the next layer? i know for sure people did when i was a kid... haha) made me realise how much fun being a kid was and how excited i am for my kids to have parties too! can hardly wait for maddies, which isn't that long away now!

and just for good measure, i'd like to leave you with this absolutely scrumptious photo of joseph in the pram that donna's grandfather made for her. laura came cruising into the kitchen with him sitting in it, laughing her head off and i couldn't help but join in. classic. he looks very manly. haha.

afternoon tea

so flipping excited! found this book yesterday while waiting for my pics at k-mart... and had to have it. you see i'm a bit of a sucker for a good afternoon tea - and after the awesome job we did at jen's kitchen tea and my girlies did at my baby shower i just couldn't resist.

can't wait to make some of the stuff in it - and am very much looking for a good excuse to throw another one... just waiting! :)