Birthday Girls

I was the baby of my high school friend group.  We are all experiencing a monumental birthday this year. 

I remember ten years ago when we turned 60. We all had high expectations (based on direct hints to our families) on our birthday celebrations. From the friend whose husband forgot to buy concert tickets, to another friend whose daughters had an arguement and neither would go to the birthday dinner if the other was there, to my family who forgot it was my birthday, we were all a little disappointed.

In November I took the oldest of the group out to lunch to celebrate her big day.  

We toasted with Red Lobster Snowglobe Sangrias. We had a fantastic afternoon with crazy adventures and I prepared a gift bag (actually I think seven gift bags, planning for the future) of fun and beautiful gifts for women of a certain age. 

Two of my best friends celebrated their birthdays at the end of April. Luckily for me, this coincided with the monthly tea party at my new favorite restaurant! 

Unfortunately we could not all open our eyes or make a normal face or not manage to look goofy in the same photo. And we took many photos. Personally I just look weird without glasses.  I ended up splicing a photo together. 

They loved the gift bags and we had such a good time.  We actually spent a lot of our conversation time on healthcare costs and insurance issues, as well as husbands and our own healthcare issues.  We have all experienced some big health issues this year and most of all we are grateful for being able to still meet for lunch.  

I have more lunches and gift bags planned for the upcoming months. One friend has broken her shoulder and just returned to assisted living from a nursing home where she went for rehab.  I told her I have something special planned for late summer and she has to keep working hard!  

And I am looking at several plans for my own birthday celebration, lol.  At the top right now is checking into a swanky hotel on my own and ordering room service all weekend. Alternately I am thinking of a party with a 1970's theme. We shall see!

My friend Jo sent me a photo of her gift bag and gifts displayed for her family!

The Tenth Birthday

 I know I left on a cliff hanger with a table full of miniature cakes - well here is the rest of the story! 

We went with pink and yellow lemonade instead of tea.  But we did have tea cups! 

My daughter made iron transfers for them to design their aprons.

These are the sweetest bunch of ten year olds you will ever meet!

Not only are they master cake decorators, they are also master cookie icers!

I spent lots of time on the tea party foods, but our favorite was

This tray of what one of the girl's mothers called "spring rolls". She is Filipino and these were a long thin cylinder of a wrapper rolled with shredded vegetables inside and fried until very crisp. They arrived fresh and hot and tasted pretty darn close to heavenly. We all loved them!

We finished with cupcakes and rainbow ice cream. 

And then we baked mini loaves of chocolate bread! 

After all the baking, the girls wrote and performed skits featuring the birthday girl. And every parent arrived on the dot at the end of the party to retrieve their daughters. And the gramma returned home exhausted. 

The end.  

I will be back soon with the next tea party. This time for my high school friends. 

Memory Monday

 

Me at three. My parents had an Olan Mills photo plan. Gotta love those bangs.

Memory Monday

 

Me, 1961.  Age 4 1/2.  

Peeking behind me, my gramma. I think she may have sewn my dress.