A: Activities and O: Outings
With the impending blizzard that my neighbor deemed Snowmageddon, we are prepped with all sorts of indoor activities to keep the need to flee to warmer climates at bay. First up: Tea Party. Prep work: teapot, cupcakes and napkins.
Teapot: Short & Stout
Teapot:
This work of art was discussed, designed and painted over a week ago at Paint Your Plate (I would link to a web site, but until their college web designer can work on it during winter break, they won’t be launching one) in the 50th and France neighborhood and shops. They have a wide variety of stuff to paint – some of it functional and some of it useless, but charming and kitschy. The $45 pot came with use of all of their paints, brushes and tools. There was a self-explanatory plate that showed techniques like the toothbrush for splattering and stencils and stamps (which we found difficult to use on a curved surface).
I mistakenly assumed we could come back two days later to pick it up. Holiday season finds their kiln and workers with a bit of a backlog. That Tuesday we learned it would be 7-10 days. The kids handled that news fairly well. After all, we had just painstakingly applied several layers of paint to this precious pot over the past 1.5 hours, and anticipated giving it as a birthday gift to Nana that weekend. Oh well, there was Christmas right around the corner.
Sweet Pink Seat at Sweet Retreat
Cupcakes:
Fast-forward 9 days to Thursday. We picked up our little teapot and headed straight for part two of our Tea Party plan – cupcakes from Sweet Retreat. You can’t miss it – there’s a big bulldog cake in the window of their shop. Cupcakes are 20% off, making it an ever sweeter deal. We each select a different one – Vanilla Princess, Gingerbread and Cookies & Cream.
We chat with the super friendly cupcake-tenders for a bit and learn they placed second in the Childrens’ Theatre Company Birthday Cake Competition. How sweet – they did a Dr. Seuss themed cake. Oh and did we want four tickets to the show currently playing there – A Christmas Story? We assured them we’d go and thanked them (I now have third-row seats for tomorrow’s matinee due to someone else’s blizzard fear cancelation).
Gifts not to be Lived Without
Napkins:
I am giddy with the Christmas spirit at this point. Sur La Table on the corner was our last stop (madness from kids about not being able to also go to the Bead Monkey.). Sur is inviting – the kids get whisked away to the back of the store where someone makes them a hot chocolate from a machine ($69) that makes espresso to chocopinos (how could I not know what this drink is?). Drawbacks were the packets of 8 priced at $9, and for Calvin, that the HC was not kiddie temp so it “killed his tastebuds.” He worried about ever being normal again, then we quickly moved on to the napkin rack.
From fancy tea party to a martini-flowing cocktail party, they had it all. I almost picked up the “I childproofed my house. But they still found a way in,” napkins but instead, I appropriately opted for polka-dots. Ava also enjoyed the 3 older ladies in bikini’s poolside, “The older you get, the less the lifeguards try to save us.” They had all sorts of reasonably priced gifts from the mini herb chopper to the super difficult to find silicone egg poacher (how is my mother, who has been in search of this, living without it?). Could have browsed much longer, but it was a school night and we were set for the tea party.
Lego my Oreo
Vanilla Princess Tea Party:
Friday afternoon tea was held promptly at quarter past four. The kids indulged in tangerine orange zinger tea and I opted for black chai. The cupcakes were yummy. We were quiet with frosting.
Suddenly it was dark and time for Charlie Brown’s Christmas. Calvin is fascinated by BigBen (PigPen) and why the snow doesn’t squelch his dust. We pause it a few times, rewind and watch the crew’s dance moves in slow motion. We all agree that the shoulder shrug dance by the kid in the orange is masterful (I marked it as a fave video on my channel at youtube.com/user/edamomie).
We’ll have plenty of time to perfect the dance this weekend and host a few more tea parties, seeing as though we’re in the midst of Snowmageddon.
edamomie 