Mad Hatter Tea Party

It happened, FINALLY!  The day/night came for the Mad Hatter Tea Party!

Here she is, the birthday girl!

The tables, all set up. It looked the way I had imagined it, which is always nice.

Hats on teacups,

The Red Queen and some party quests.

We started with lessons on how to properly sip your tea while we waited for everyone to follow the white rabbit to Wonderland.

They came down the hill in the background next to the privacy fence,

And found the party waiting.  Everyone was having a good time

A few Mommies joined in the fun.

Stop being so cute , Eliz! Gracious!

We played freeze dance, which was highly entertaining for me, the grown up.

My sisters were supposed to be helping, but they had disappeared to get "dressed".  Then something start to appear and disappear over the fence.

It was Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum!  So glad they could make it!

The Red Queen approves, better late than never. 

And back to the freeze dance.

Of course, Dee & Dum gave pointers.

And the girls tried to keep up with the adults' amazing dance moves.

Then something wonderful happened!  The Mad Hatter showed up at our Tea Party!

He had a case and a show for us, how exciting! 

So, we gathered 'round, all giggles and excitement,

He started simple, tie the know, magically untie the knot.

His first helper was a little scared.

But not Casserole, she couldn't wait to help.  She volunteered, whether that's what he was asking for or not!

HA!  We caught Diva Dee smiling!  It doesn't happen often, but we have PROOF!  She smiled!

I'm not sure what he did at this point, but his tricks went quickly from good to pretty great.

Yes, I'm eating iced chocolate cookies.  Gotta problem?  Oh, well, Off with your head then!

This one had everyone laughing, he was just being silly, then he silenced us all, even the grown ups with a little shake of the bag at the end.

Birthday Girl's turn!  He told this little story about these two rabbits, Mary & Joseph, and Tater Tot got to help him "marry" them.

Then he gave Eliz Mary to hold and squeeze while he told another story about them.

He explained they were going to having babies, lots and lots of babies.

And when he told her to open her hand, there were lots and lots of babies bouncing out of her palm!  I love her face, she didn't know she could do that!

And Casserole finally got her wish.  She got called up to help with a new gadget.  It was so new he said he hadn't even read the directions yet!

And the Casserole learned why some people say, "Be careful what you wish for"  If everything works right, he said, the celery would get chopped off, but not her hand.  Of course, he hadn't had it long, so he wasn't really sure.

He had a captive audience, to say the least.

I love this man.  He drew this part out for a good 5 minutes, the girls were on the edge of their seats with worry.

The Quilter told me she kept getting "save me" looks from Casserole, her daughter, if you hadn't figured that out.

He was very confident this would work just fine.  Surely, surely it would go well, but just in case here's a bowl for your hand.

And he makes the chop!

Everyone sighed with relief.  Of note, The Mad Hatter was so funny, that the adults had side aches, and the poor photographer had a hard time taking pictures.

And then, he had to go, his time was up!

While the girls did an art relay race, we started bringing food down.

You start an art project, and after a minute, you have to get up and start working on another art project.

Dive Dee liked this.

As the sun started to set, we had to bring out sweaters for the girls, it got chilly fast!

A little shenanigans with the deer in the woods.

Eliz was given 8 bags, the contents of each one corresponding with the number of the bag- bag 8 had 8 items in it, bag 7 had 7 items, and so on.

Then it was time to come inside!  To keep them busy while we hauled everything up the hill, they had a special maze to go through.  One part of the house was covered with white yarn.

The other was covered with red yarn.

The first group to gather up all their yarn, wins!

Harder than they expected, but took just long enough.

I don't remember wrapping yarn around Tater Tot.

Yay!  The white team wins!

Time for cupcakes!  And the Red Queen got dressed in her jammies.

Eliz and I compromised on the gift giving portion by asking that people only give gift cards.

DEE & Dum changed also, but continued with their antics.

I think that hat suits Dive Dee perfectly.

Cupcakes, gift cards, what more could there be?  Oh, yes, general antics.

Sticker pox flared up.

and spread like wildfire!  We got the girls settled down and watching a movie, the Johnny Depp version of Alice in Wonderland.  These little party animals were still talking and giggling at 2am, when I told them they had to go to sleep.

In the morning, they watched a slide show of the party while eating a super healthy breakfast of sticky buns and tea.

What kind of tea, you ask?  Why the brown bubbly kind!

They got to decorate the house, and just play and have fun.

I forgot to show you the incredible party bags The Quilter made- they're teacups!  How cute!  They had Lisa Frank pencils and stickers, some candy, and hair bows made by Aunt A & I.

I paint faces, and so I spent the morning painting little girls' faces, but I only got a picture of these two.

I don't know about the rest of her fellow party animals, but this little tiger slept for a couple of hours that afternoon.