It's been a busy week...

We just made it to the 1st of 4 hotels we will be staying at over a month's time. We just spent the last week or so at my husband's bachelor uncle's townhouse. I'm sure he is glad to have his place back in one piece!

While staying at their uncle's place, I kept busy during the day commuting Olivia back and forth to preschool. We came back for lunch and naps, then headed out again for dinner with friends every night. My friends really came through. It was nice to go out to eat with my friends and their kids.

Thursday was Olivia's last day of preschool at her Montessori school in the East Bay...sniff...sniff... I just loved her preschool...I wanted to go to school there...ha ha! Friday was her school's end of year picnic. It was loads of fun. All the older students who were going on to Kindergarten ran booths such as cookie decorating, bean bag toss, nail painting, sno cone booth, sack race, etc. And it was potluck so everyone brought sandwiches, salads and desserts. It was relaxed and the kids had fun. It was nice to talk to some of the parents.

Saturday was Olivia' BIG birthday party. She had a Garden Tea Party at a local historic farm. She had a big crowd...about 12 girls that came. It was so nice to have it somewhere where they do all the work...I just brought all the food, cake and goodie bags.

The staff had 'pick up' games such as hula hoops, jumping rope, fishing for plastic fish in a barrel, horseshoes, pin the bee on a flower and they had a potting activity. After some of the games, the girls were served 'tea' which was actually lemonade in beautiful teacups. They were served the sandwiches I made which were cheese/butter and strawberry jam/butter flower shaped sandwiches with goldfish crackers. I completely forgot to take pictures of the sandwiches, they turned out really cute. I used a large flower cookie cutter to cut the bread on one side, on the other I did the same, but also cut a small hole in the middle so it would look like a flower with a middle color. I bought sandwiches from Costco for the parents and made some cucumber/cream cheese sandwiches, too.

After lunch, they played games again and then went on a tour of the farm which included an organic garden and a tractor barn with vintage cars and tractors. We got a priceless picture of all the girls on an old tractor in the field. After the tour, everyone sang happy birthday to Olivia and they were all served cake and ice cream. Everything turned out great, but I think Olivia was overwhelmed with all the attention. When they were getting ready to eat cake some of the girls were fighting over who would sit next to Olivia...poor thing, she didn't know what to do...and I didn't either! It worked out though with some shifting of the kids.

We ended up taking all the gifts home to open after naptime. I like doing the parties this way because the opening of the gifts is just too crazy at this age. I have to say, though, everyone was so generous, she got some terrific toys and books.

I was a little disappointed that 4 girls didn't show up that had said they were coming. Two of them were friends of mine that just completely forgot, the other 2 were girls from school that I didn't really know anyway.