Miss No-No's 4th Tea

Miss No-No turned FOUR earlier this month. Every year, to celebrate, we take her out for "high tea". It's something special for her to look forward to and something special that I can do with her to celebrate each annual milestone. I like having a tradition where we always do the same things every year just for her.

This year, we went to the Vintage Tea Leaf in Long Beach, CA. It was very nice and very up-scale. They even happily accommodated my vegan sandwich requests!

Miss No-No had PB&J with Pooh Bear Honey Hot Chocolate. The coolest thing was that when we walked in, they let us pick out our own tea cups!

Miss No-No had a great time and me and my mom enjoyed ourselves as well.

If you are looking for a place in the Long Beach area to celebrate something special, I suggest you run in and check this place out. The service is awesome, the food is good, and the decor is outstanding. Since this has been our 4th high tea, I can tell you, it's one of the best places that we have been to so far!

What are some special traditions that you have in your family?

Please stop by and visit the giveaway post to read about the review and giveaway where we are co-hosting a giveaway with Sarah from Shaklee. We will have two winners and the giveaway ends June 1st.

More later! :)

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My Birthday & Other Interesting Things

So my birthday was about two weeks ago - and I haven't had time to write until now.... I am 36 now - wow! ;)
On the 7th, we went to Miss M's school for a Mother and Grandmother's Day breakfast. It was very nice - they brought in Starbucks coffee, Mimi's muffins and a whole tray of strawberries. We all sat and ate and then the kiddies got together in front of the class and sang a couple of songs and then the moms went out with them and did the hokey-pokey dance (not kidding!). The kids also made sashes for the moms to wear that said Great Mom, made frames with their pics inside, and then her teacher went around and took pics and then sent those home later in the week. It was a very nice morning. My mom came with me and she had a nice time, too. She was glad to *finally* get to see Miss M's school and what she is doing there. And Miss M was happy to have us there, and kept showing my mom stuff - - and then she got lost running around with her friends and Mom and I just hung out (at the little tables, in the little chairs, trying not to bash our knees in - hahahha!). Afterwards, Mom and I were going to lunch at Claire's at the Long Beach Museum of Art - I thought that would be a treat since I had never been before, and I was really looking forward to it. But, we walked out of MCDC at like 9:15 or 9:30 and didn't really have a plan for anything but lunch.
We ended up cruising down to 2nd Street and just walking around, looking at all the new shops - and do I mean NEW! A new gourmet grocery store (olives), olive oil tasting at We Olive, and purse shopping at some new place that is right next to Romance, Etc. We also hit our old favs - Ferns Garden, the body shop, Romance, Etc., and just looked around at everything else. :) Very nice, relaxing and fun. I realized part way through that my usual shopping events involved Target and Vons lately - and that isn't all the fun that walking around, window shopping is!
Next was lunch at Claires - which was VERY good. I can totally see why it's award winning. Will definitely be back there. I had a roasted veggie sandwich with a hummus appetizer. For dessert we shared a creme brulee (won't be having that again, though).
Saturday, my parents came over and we went to this little italian restaurant that I drive by all the time on the way to the library - Trattoria Limone. Very good, very nice. For my bday I got great stuff - a new apron that my mom made for me, a new beach hat, some beautiful Pfaltzgraff salad bowls, fun new tea and cookies from SN, and then he broke out the killer present - a 1.0 carat anniversary band!!! Wow! (That was actually supposed to be for our anniversary, but I guess he got present (and excitement!) overload, and gave it to me early) Knocked me out of the park - even though I knew it was coming - I hadn't expected it to be so brilliant. I love it!
More later!
:)

Miss M's Bday

So we spent the Monday night before Miss M's bday getting everything ready, decorating the house (mostly the dining room, but also her bedroom doorway), getting all the presents wrapped and setting it all up for her to see as soon as she woke up in the morning. It was very fun - - and she was surprised by it all; however, I think she may have been expecting it because she told me that the whole house would be decorated for her bday - hahahhah! Guess she DOES remember last year!
She got tons of stuff - $$ from Great Grandma & A. Margie, a full ballerina outfit (including shoes!) from G. Donna, A. Brenda sent a Dora hula skirt, a Dora bathing suit, and a Dora nightgown, C. Ky got her a Kohls gift card, and then we got her fun stuff - books, markers, floaties for the pool, stuff like that. She seemed to have a very good time and really enjoy herself. I still haven't taken everything down yet (SN said to just leave it all up for my bday - hahahahhaa - guess I wanted a princess themed party too!). Will probably do that this week when I clean.
We also got her an icecream cake - she had that candle blown out and was licking frosting off of it in no time. :)
U. Mike called to wish her happy bday and C. Sean sang to her! A. Brenda called and she did good talking to her, but by the time G. Donna called, she was so busy playing with everything and looking at stuff that she couldn't talk to her!!
She had a great time - and we feel so lucky to have our little baby.

My little girl is THREE and she gets smarter and funnier and more beautiful allllll the time!!
More later!
:)

My mommy is here, that's my mommy!

Busy weekend! (again! hahahah)

Last Friday, we did Miss M's bday at school - she wanted Mac n Cheese with Fruit and Cupcakes. I never really thought about it before, but it's a lot of work to make mac n cheese for 20 kids all at once!! I used a big 6 qt stock pot and cooked it all up, got a big fruit tray from the grocery store and made cupcakes right before I left to take everything to her school. She had a nice time celebrating her bday, they sang to her and she got to show her class pics from when she was a baby until right now!! Then they had her dance around a little bit and they sang her Happy Birthday - they even gave her a little (paper) crown to wear for the day (they told me that she wore it ALL day!). She had a great time and then she got to pick the order for the kids to go and wash their hands to get ready for lunch. During lunch, I sat with her, but she had fun with all the other kids and, really, just getting to be the center of attention. I was amazed at how nice and orderly lunchtime is at her school. The kids were excited and talking a lot and asking a lot of questions, but they were still good and stayed at their tables - I was very impressed. The best part of the whole thing (for me) was when I first walked into the room and one of the little kids said, Is that Morgan's mom? ..and she looked around and saw me and came running over. Then she went back to the circle and I heard her saying - My mommy is here, that's my mommy! Ahhhh - I loved it.

Saturday, my mom took us for tea to celebrate her bday - very nice - we went to a new place in Claremont that was small, but nice. They gave Miss M her own tea pot (with pink lemonade) and a little matching cup and saucer. They had lots of little pb&j sandwich triangles and nice fruit and cookies, all set up in a tiered-style serving tray. She really enjoyed it - - and one of the desserts was a lollipop (which is her new favorite treat next to candy bracelets!) and that was the icing on the cake for her. After awhile, she got a little bit bored, so we went outside and ran around and looked at things, and then went back to get my mom. My parents gave her lots of nice presents - a dress for her with a matching one for her doll, books, and a digital kids camera (that also shoots videos!!), and this frame that held three pics of her and my mom cross stitched her name at the bottom.

Sunday, we went down to Carlsbad for the street fair. It was nice but very crowded. We stopped on the way down at Starbucks and shared a mini chocolate donught, mini vanilla scone, and a berry crumb cake. It meant that we got off to a slow start getting down to Carlsbad, but we enjoyed ourselves along the way!! After we got tired of the fair (it's like six or seven blocks long and two blocks wide with vendors along every sidewalk and then down the middle of the street), we went down towards the beach a block and found this little plaza with restaurants and a fountain and just hung out there for awhile...and then we finally went home. Miss M fell asleep on the way, but woke up in time to play with dad for awhile and then we all got ready for the coming week!

More later!

:)