a mother's day tea party

we celebrated mother's day yesterday by throwing our mamas a sunday afternoon tea party at our house.  it was so much fun!  we were thrilled to have an excuse to use our china tea pot and every cake stand that we own!  we borrowed my mom's antique tea cups and everyone got to pick their own tea cup pattern for the day.  we had 19 different varieties of tea to choose from (20 if you include that we had iced tea too)!

since this tea party was a meal, we didn't fill our menu with a lot of sweets like traditional tea parties offer.  we did however, stick with the finger food theme.  our tea party menu included:
- mini sun-dried tomato, chive, and asiago cheese scones
- mini broccoli, scallion, chive, and cheddar quiche
- mini croissants sandwiches with pesto, grilled veggies (zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant) and roasted red peppers
- chicken salad (with cranberries, walnuts, celery, and scallions) to pair with honey-wheat rolls and mini pumpernickel bread
 - cracked pepper crackers with dill cream cheese spread topped with thinly sliced cucumbers (our take on traditional cucumber sandwiches)
- tomato, basil, and mozzarella caprese skewers

for dessert, we tried a new recipe that my mom found called a strawberry dream cake.  it was a vanilla almond cake (almost like a pound cake) with an almond mascarpone whipped cream frosting and tons of whole fresh strawberries.  it was a huge hit!

the sun was shining all day, which was a very nice change from the rainy gloomy weather we have had for the past week.  it was gorgeous!

we had a lot of fun planning and enjoying the tea party.  we are so grateful for our mamas and everything that they do for us.  we are beyond blessed!  it was so nice to be able to spend mother's day with our families!  here are a few pictures from our tea party . . .

ps: of course, leko got in on the tea party action too.  leko is a huge fan of what we call "tuna juice" which is the water in cans of tuna fish.  whenever my mom makes tuna, she reserves the tuna water in little tupperware containers and freezes it for leko until she sees him.  leko loves his tuna juice which he lovingly refers to as "T" so when he heard we were having a tea party for his grandmas, he naturally thought we were having a tuna party.  i let him pick out which tea cup he wanted, and i put his tuna juice container inside.  i'm pretty sure everyone thought i was completely nuts for letting him eat out of an antique tea cup, but i'll tell you, we was so dainty and delicate about it.  that's my baby boy!  he sure made me a happy kitty mama on mother's day yesterday!  ;-)

love, laurie