Dog Tea

Every year I throw a tea for Carisa (and me)

to celebrate our birthdays.

Hey, it's MY party and I'll throw it if I want to.

I was drawing a big fat blank on ideas this year when my friend Julie came up with a dog theme.

DUH!

Carisa LOVES dogs.

Like it-is-her-passion-kinda-loves dogs.

She rescues them.

And they rescue her right back.

Oh my goodness, did anyone else hear music 

in the background and envision an entire

Hallmark movie??

I can just see her driving one of those cute mobile dog grooming trucks with her cartoon picture on the side saying something in one of those conversation bubbles like,

"Hey, y'all, let me cut your dog's hair."

Except WAY more clever than that.

But definitely keeping the y'all part.

Anyhoo…Julie nailed it.

A dog theme was born.

I went to Dollar Tree and bought a bunch of dog collars.

The idea was to add some "bling" and make them into bracelets.

Life happened so the bling adding didn't.

But we kept them in the favor bags anyway.

I made "doggy bags" out of lunch sacks. I stamped a dog paw on the front and used a stamp I had of a cute dog holding a heart onto card stock for tags.

I wrote the name of each person attending the tea in the heart.

Sumita made the cutest dog bone cookies with everyone's name on them to go in the bags.

I found this candy at World Market for the bags as well:

Julie wanted to make sure I kept the dog theme "classy"

but sometimes I just. can't. help. it.

Then there were the cupcakes.

Of course, I went to Chocolate Cafe.

They did the cupcakes for last year's 80s themed tea.
And McDaniel's thrift store themed party.
And the awesome breakfast tailgate.

I just told them the theme and to run with it.

I didn't even think to tell them, 

like Ron Burgundy from "The Anchorman", 

to "stay classy".

This is what I picked up the morning of the tea:

Seriously not my fault, Julie.

Carisa, late and fuzzy-headed from a cold

There she is…finally!

(she got lost driving to the tea house)

loved the cupcakes!

I probably took advantage of her cold
medicine stupor with these pictures.

Going in for the close-up in case there
is a debate on if she did, in fact, eat poop.

No debating it now.

So cute!

The grass detail was so awesome.

They crumbled chocolate cupcake bits to
look like dug up dirt around the bone.

I found the cutest napkins at World Market that completely summed up Carisa:

I put together a little "reading" about dogs and friends.

I passed out two cards to each person at the table to read out loud and show the corresponding picture.

We decided that Carisa is the moon howler and I am the one
most likely to chase my own tail.
Can I get an Amen?

We get our own room at the tea house. I think my "bra theme" a few years
ago pretty much required it. That and how loud we are. Lots of laughing.

Carol trying to sneak out. Ha!

Great group of Jesus loving women. You should have
heard Julie's prayer before lunch--it had its
own soundtrack.

Someone trying to sneak their icing fire
hydrant home with them.

It was such a great time and everyone is such good sports about all our

tomfoolery,

buffoonery, 

moon howling, 

own-tail chasing,

hijinks.