Well, almost. For our family, our little family of hour (six if you count the dog and cat, I cant even think about adding the chickens) we are summer heavy when it comes to birthdays. Evie, Will and Nigella all have June birthdays, Briton and I are both in August, as is our anniversary. So we get pretty busy around here at the start of summer in terms of party planning. Last year Briton opted for a kind of non-party. He had a sleepover with two friends and really they didn't come out of the playroom the whole evening. We had to drag them out for cake. It was lovely. But also kinda sad for me. I love planning parties and so having my child express taht he didn't really want a big to do anymore, well, I might have been a little teary. Then there was the "I just want a yellow cake from a box" incident which, I can't even talk about (come on kid! Your mother loves to bake, are you really going to make her make box cake? Yes, yes you are) Although we were in the middle of moving so it ended up being a good thing. This year he hasn't decided what he wants but Miss Evelyn knows for sure what she wants. I'm not really sure, but she is sure. So far she has told me she wants a GIRL party, but with boys too. And a TEA party, but really with cake. And a playing outside party, but wearing dresses.
You see my confusion. So we're having a Mad Hatter's Party which, I think, covers most of the bases there. I'm starting to gather old teapots and cups for the party and have great plans to get started on a bunch of paper mache hats for them to decorate and wear. I've been informed that the cake MUST be pink, with pink frosting and pink sprinkles and am in the process of making some very Alice-like "Eat Me!" signs for the food. I have a vague idea of dressing myself up as the Queen of Hearts, somehow. But most of that is still on the to do list. Or even just on the "in my head we will have this" list. The only thing that I have done is the invitations.
These are pretty much the same as the pencil cups I just made, except this time I typed out the party information in a (totally dorky, but they're three, what do they know!) poem and swirled it around some funky tea cups that I found at Salvation Army. Each of the kids in Evelyn's little posse of three year olds is getting one. I'd almost say that I'm going to have to give this whole strange and unusual (and only hand deliverable) invitation thing up once Evelyn hits school, except that's kind of the bonus you get for having summer birthdays. The trade off you get for having to suffer through 100 degree weather while pregnant, twice, is that you don't have to invite the whole flipping class to birthday parties. Don't get me wrong, it's fun to have a big party, but really, all they want is to hang out with a few really good friends. Or at least my kids do.
So in honor of the kick off to the Grimm Family Birthday season, here are Evelyn's totally unmailable Mad Hatter Party Invitations.