Blogmas | Games for the Holidays!

Hello!

I don’t know about you, but my family has never been into games.

The one thing I wished my family did more of was play games. We had a couple of years where we did in fact play Just Dance and Taboo, but they didn’t end quite well, which is probably why we never kept at it afterwards!

Now that I have Nolan and Kimber, I would like to bring in some old school games that I certainly enjoyed as a child. Nolan is very infatuated with technology and understands what a PlayStation and XBOX are–thanks in part to his daddy! However, as I’ve found out recently, he has a knack for Hungry Hungry Hippoes, so I may be right in my thinking that introducing some of these games I will be talking about in this post, will be something he might enjoy too!

Unfortunately, Kimber isn’t old enough to actually play with us, but I’m hoping watching the two of us would give her something to look forward to in the future. So, here were some of the games that I thought could be really good contenders for the three of us and maybe possibly your family too to play during the holidays.

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Connect 4

Last September, while my sister was in the hospital, Nolan and I spent a good amount of time together and on Nickleodeon, they had some advertisements for the newest creation of the Connect 4 franchise; we were intrigued, Nolan especially, but I’ve always been more into the original setup, so I wasn’t too interested in this version.

I have many, many memories of playing this game in school. While I was in elementary, I took speech and every Friday we had a popcorn party, where we sat on the floor, ate popcorn, and played a different game (thus how this post came about!) each week. Connect 4 is a very easy game to understand as you have the structure itself and two different colored coins or chips, the objective is to not only block the other player, but you also have to connect four spots in a row in order to win.

Connect 4 is a lot like Bingo and Tic-Tac-Toe as you can go in many directions: diagonally, side to side, and up and down. As long as you win “fairly” then anyone at any age can be a master at the game itself.

Jenga

When I was in elementary school, I took Speech, and I would be in there for maybe 20-25 minutes a day and I specifically remember Fridays being the best day of the entire week because it was our party day. Our teacher was so sweet, and she would make popcorn for each class, and we’d play different games, but it was a ruse because we still had to do our lessons in between turns. She was a smart and sneaky like that! Anyways, I tried to rack my brain trying to figure out which ones we played, and I really hope that I can teach my nephew someday soon.

Jenga is very unique, it is made up of rectangle sticks and requires you to really think about the overall design, whenever it is your turn, you pick a stick from the very bottom of the build or a little higher. For most people, you rarely went from the bottom as you need good bones for everything to stay up and if you take one from that section and it turns out it was helping from breaking down the whole thing, you lose. My nephew has always enjoyed stacking things up and blocks in general, so toddlers would really love playing something like this because they’re always doing things with their toys.

Screamo

For this game, I learned it at the nursing home back in October. If these ladies ranging in age early 70’s to mid-80’s can play, anybody can do it. My nephew is four and he just loves playing this game anytime he comes over. It is usually the first thing he wants to do! What he doesn’t know is that he’s learning a bit of math too!

It is fairly simple once you figure out the steps. You have a paper with the numbers 1-12, two dice, and 12 chips or coins as my nephew prefers to call them. The main goal is to roll both of your dice and say it lands on a four and seven, this equals out to be seven but you’ve already covered up your seven with a previous play, so you have three options, that is if these other numbers are not already gone, you can lay down two coins on your four and three or exchange them with a five and two or six and one, which is even better because it is better to remove the number one as you can’t get a natural one with two dice.

UNO

I like a lot of card games, but my ultimate favorite–even if I’m not the best at it!–is UNO.

I have never been able to figure out how long I’ve loved UNO, but it had to come after middle school though. It doesn’t show up in my earlier memories and this kind of makes sense because I do remember playing an awful lot from 2005-2009 with my family and friends at slumber parties (do you remember those?!) and again, it is pretty easy to follow, but there are a few symbols that can be somewhat tricky, like the reverse and skip cards. These can be really annoying if you are playing with a large group of people and nobody really knows who is next in line, so to make things easier on yourself and the newcomers, I’d pick those guys out before you start the game entirely.

There is an episode of The Golden Girls where Dorothy is playing Gin Rummy with her mother Sophia, and she always loses the game and Sophia basically drives her completely insane after every round so she gives up and decides no more. By the end of the episode, you learn why Sophia chooses to play it with her daughter and they end up playing a round during the last few seconds of the show. I guess I’m the same way with UNO. I love playing it with my family the most, it’s where I have the most memories, and it doesn’t matter on the age because my nana was in her late 70’s when we taught her so it’s not all that difficult once you know what each card means while the game continues.

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In a way, I am like Sophia because I like the talk and watching everyone’s facial expressions as they arrange their cards and it’s one game that being an observer can have its advantages… As much as I’d like to win a round or two, I am fine with seeing someone get excited instead. This is what I hope to teach Nolan the most; it’s okay to allow someone to win but you never, ever tell them afterwards, because then they’ll think you forfeited the game and they’ll want a rematch and that attitude doesn’t make good challenges, especially if they lose against you.

What are your favorite games to play during the holidays? Which one do you hope to teach your child or family member someday?

November Playlist

Hello!

Since I’ve been kind of turning these monthly playlists into mini wrap ups, I figured this was the perfect way to talk about October and why exactly I was staying at a nursing home for a bit.

So, let’s rewind back to around August as it was the month where everything went up a notch.

My dad has a lot of health issues, but at the end of summer, we started noticing he was losing the usage of his right arm. He has had many MRIs and X-Rays in the past few years and the majority of his trouble areas are in and around his neck and spine. He has broken several discs in the past, but now as he ages, he’s continued to add more arches and pains. He has been told to have surgery since I was a kid, but he’s always turned them down for risking his ability to take care of me. If you’ve ever met my dad, you know how stubborn he is, so you wouldn’t expect anything less from him, especially for something like this.

Four years ago, when my mom had her surgeries, I made the decision to staying in a nursing home while she was there in the hospital and recovering, and since she is a nurse at a really great residential home, and at the time where my nana was living, the idea was simple but most importantly practical for everyone involved. I would spend my week there, before going to stay at my sister’s on the weekend. I was having my mom’s co-workers and friends basically take care of me like the rest of the people there. I was even allowed to get my hair cut by the hairdresser there! Honestly, I had a lot of fun spending time with my nana and the other ladies, and of course playing bingo too!

Fast forward to now, the idea of dad having surgery and knowing how indeed stubborn he truly is, made my mom and I make that crucial decision of staying at the nursing home for two weeks. We had made this decision pretty quickly, because we knew if we had it planned out well enough, my parents could essentially forget about me, and focus on dad’s surgery and recovery. We figured it out within a month or maybe less than that, because we discussed it quite a bit beforehand, so it’s difficult to narrow down the timeline.

This time was completely different.

There were things that I expected like my tiny calf muscles screaming at me during the first week because I was rolling around in my wheelchair the entire building, and like my dad, I am also stubborn and rarely asked for help, because I actually liked it. It was when I was pushing my folded bed in breakfast table with some stuff I had I would need for that day, down the massive hall that I was actually allowing myself a break and had someone carry it to my destination, which was always the activity room.

What we didn’t intend on happening was the edge of my knees, all the way down to my ankles and toes would become very swollen. I have never experience this before, it actually freaked us out because my feet felt like balloons and looked like they were going to explode at any moment. After that, I was put on a water pill and gradually it helped with the swelling, but I would still have some issues around the ridge of my feet, especially on my left foot, which makes sense considering I was using that foot to push myself around, but yeah that was a fun little surprise.

I was only supposed to stay there for two weeks, but I kept having the date to go home pushed back… twice.

My nana had moved up north with my aunt and uncle a few months later, so I would be alone this time around, and I’ll be honest I was worried about being on my own, but I was in really good hands too, as the longer I was there, the more I was making friends with the other residents too. This was my first time having a roommate since 2002, and she was a lovely lady and we sat together for meals, and we would go to the different activities. The first I participated in were these weaving pumpkins. They gave us a wired outline of a pumpkin and there were two different types of yarn to us, i went with the skinnier and darker orange whle my roommate went for the Cheeto-like yarn as it was bright orange and very puffy!

Besides doing lots of crafts, they played a lot of games too!

The first full day, not only did I weave a pumpkin, but I played Screamo for the first time ever. What is Screamo you say? Well, like my dad said, it’s like Yahtzee and it is, you have two dices and a sheet with the numbers 1-12 including 12 chips or coins, and the group goes around and rolls the dice and whatever it lands on, like a four and five which adds up to a nine, so you can cover those numbers or eight and one, or just the nine, but it is smarter to get rid of the 1 first as it can be tricky to get it as you cover the others. Once you’ve covered the entire board, you scream it out and win. It is easy to follow and would be really great for kids who have trouble with math, and you could switch it up to subtraction and maybe even multiplication if you feel like getting really creative with it.

Three weeks after I came home, I introduced it to my four-year-old nephew, and he literally kicked my butt in three games. However, I will overlook the loses as he thoroughly enjoyed himself and to me that is even better than winning any game with him. Speaking of which, I will be doing a post about fun games to play during the holidays for Blogmas, so keep an eye out for that coming soon.

I was able to spend my birthday there, it wasn’t planned as I was supposed to come home that weekend, but my gal pals really wanted to throw me a party and I thought it was too sweet to tell them no, so after playing Bingo, we had a party and my mom, sister, Nolan and Kimber came out to help celebrate it. I heard the “happy birthday” song three times and by the second time, where everyone in the dining room sang to me, absolutely terrified me, because I don’t like being the center of attention at all. I felt very loved, which was their intention of course, but again, totally out of my element.

The last day I was there was bittersweet as it was nice. I had a lot of people trying to keep me there, but I needed to go home too. While I was there for four weeks, I had missed my dad (he did come to visit me), Rumer, and the cats. My cat Stormy became fairly sick before I left, he’s been really snotty and his allergies really took hold of him, so while I was gone, I kept getting updates from my parents on him, and I enjoyed the pictures my mom would send me, but my ultimate favorite was this one. He felt good enough to climb up to the back deck, which wasn’t something he could do before I left. My mom was so proud of him she opened the patio door and allowed him to enjoy his lunch on the kitchen rug. He now has a bit of a head tilt, but he seems to be doing better. He has been coming up and meowing to us whenever we call him.

November was chaotic in those first two weeks. I had a really heavy time of the month and then on top of that, I either contracted food poisoning or stomach flu. We think it might’ve been the latter since my mom was also affected by it too, although, she wasn’t too bad, I definitely made up for her that’s for sure! Once I was through with both of them, the month started to perk up a bit. We had to have Thanksgiving two days earlier than usual; my mom tends to work on Thanksgiving, so we try to have it on Black Friday, but we had a conflict with other schedules, so we had it on Wednesday.

While I was in the nursing home, I ended up starting and finishing two books I found there. I read Murder on The Orient Express by Agatha Christie and The Duchess by Danielle Steel (the review will go out on Wednesday!) and I still have my third book which is, The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin. It is about Anne Morrow Lindburgh, who was the wife of Charles Lindburgh, but I actually haven’t been doing any reading lately, which is sad, but I read over 50 books this year so I’m not too mad about it honestly. I’m just not going to enjoy updating my stats on Wednesday because that is going to be a real bitch, but I think once I’m done with all of my blog work for the year, I will be able to get back into it again.

I have one more thing to say, since I wasn’t able to get everything done for my final installment of the “Garden Tour” I will be waiting until January to publish it. I am going into Blogmas content on Friday and will not have time to do anything with it for a while, so I just wanted to give you a heads up on it.

And now, I can finally give you the November playlist. If you would like to hear the rest of the playlist, click here

End Of The End by Blastoyz featuring Reality Test, UNSECRET and Krigare
Rise Up by 2WEI x Edda Hayes
Ghosts by Xandria
Hold Me, Help Me by Halocene
Vivien by Crosses
Wake The World by Epica featuring Phil Lanzon and Tommy Karevik
I Like It by Cardi B featuring Bad Bunny and J Balvin
Shut Down by BLACKPINK
Dark Sun by Ros Stephen x Power-Hus
Believer by Lea Michele
What A Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong
House On A Hill by Kamelot featuring Simone Simons

How was your November? What were you listening to?

Nolan’s 1st Party!

Hello!

Last weekend we celebrated my nephew’s first birthday with a big party! It’s been a long time since I have been at his house. I told my mom that he had to been around three months at the time, because Brandon and I were watching Black Panther after it just came out on DVD. It was very difficult to keep my eyes on the screen and not on a certain little baby in the pack-n-play! He was surprisingly very good for us, until towards the ending where he wanted to be fed quickly and he wasn’t – he wasn’t very happy! He has yet to grow out of that by the way!

The theme of the party had changed a few times over the coming months, but ultimately they decided on one thing: Llamas! So, in March, my sister found him this cute little llama stuffed toy at the store for Easter and he apparently liked it so much that she set out to find other items to fit in that theme, thus making the entire party about llamas. The only thing that wasn’t in a llama shape was the cake, although she did try to find someone to make one for her back in May!

One of my favorite things that had llamas on it, were our shirts that Blondie found for us. Both sides of the family were given customize T-Shirts of a black silhouette of a llama with whatever we are to Nolan. For example, I am his “auntie” so that’s what I got on mine, but both of his grandmothers have different names. My mom is “Mimi” while Brandon’s mom is “Grammie” to him. I have always had a small stack of tops that fit perfectly on my shoulders and if there was a special design on the front, it isn’t blocked by my hands the whole time the stack was even smaller! I’m very glad to tell you that I can add this to the pack! You can see everything, I love it so much!

My mom and I were the first ones to get there. I was greeted by Chipper and the cats. Chipper was SO excited to see us, but the look on Nolan’s face when he realized that Mimi was the one waking him up from a nap in his crib, was so cute! He was so surprised! He looked stunned when he found out I was there too! We were there about 10 minutes before my dad and our “uncle” Russell came over. Nolan was very happy to see his papaw! He just wrapped his small arms around his neck (and beard) and my dad was all too happy to deny him. Nolan was a little unsure about Russell at first but after a couple of minutes, he actually asked to be held by him and it was so adorable.

They were originally supposed to have 30+ people coming to the party, but since we were under a Tornado warning all afternoon, we were happy with the small get together instead. It was an interesting mix of people though, the best thing was everybody got along perfectly! We ate food, chit-chat with one another, played with Nolan. Our friend Jayde, who is expecting her first baby boy later this year, ate around three cupcakes. She and I made a deal that she could have the cupcakes and I can have the broccoli. I love broccoli! She fully agreed to that! I’m actually shocked on how little I snacked though, because I’m known to eat quite a bit at parties but there wasn’t a lot of room for me to eat by myself or have my mom feed me easily without being in the way of little guy eating his strawberries in his high chair! Honestly, I made myself a deal at the end of the party, I was going to have one vanilla cupcake. I did get my cupcake, but I almost regretted it on the way home…

After everybody grabbed a seat, we decided it was time to open some presents. He got a LOT of interesting toys for his birthday! The first one that “he” opened was from his Grammie and his aunties too. Blondie opened the cards first, which is always a nice gesture even though they are usually the last present anybody ever wants to open, because they usually have a message inside that could make you cry in front of your guests. Nolan was another story entirely, he loved his cards! The one that his Grammie got him had shiny glitter inside the number one symbol on the front, so you could essentially shake it like a snow globe and everything will move around. He literally did not want to put it down! It was in his right hand during the rest of the unwrapping.

These are some of the gifts that I could remember of the party.

• A small red and blue slide (that was wrapped in Batman paper! I loved it, and I’m not a big fan of him either!)
• A large stack of different summery clothes.
• Bubble making lawn mower
• Tool bench and belt full of tools he’ll need to fix my ‘broken’ wheelchairs
• A standing drum set
• A big yellow truck to put all of his toys
• Paw Patrol trucks with characters of the show
• A book for bedtime made specifically for him as it has a blond baby named Nolan.

There were a lot more that you will see at in the gallery below. He will certainly be really busy making lots of noises in the next few months! My sister actually sent mom a picture of him standing at the drum kit in the middle of the pack-n-play without any help of the walls after the party was over! We’re getting closer to seeing cutie pie walking around on his own.

Once we were finished with the presents, we moved on watching him eat his smash cake. For this, he had to become semi-naked and as much as he loves being like this, he absolutely hates taking off his clothes! After everything was off, he was placed in his high chair again. I will be inserting the before and after pictures of the cake itself in a minute, but Nolan isn’t necessarily a messy eater, he likes to inspect things so he was really puzzled by this cake at first. He literally only would stick one finger into it at a time. Brandon quickly realized that we’d be here forever if he continues doing this, so to make things go faster, he literally grabbed Nolan’s hands and planted them right into the cake! Nolan was not sure what to do with all of the icing on his hands so he was literally shaking his arms but he actually accepted the fact that it did taste pretty good!

The part that made me remember that I am still teaching him things without even realizing it, was when he started leaning his mouth into the cake. As everybody was laughing and taking pictures at this, I was like “oh, crap!” Whenever I eat in the kitchen, he is at the same level as me, so he can watch me like a hawk, because I do lean into my plate so my tongue can reach everything. So seeing the now one year old mimicking what I do for every breakfast, lunch, and dinner, was pretty cute! He was trying his best to get into it, to the point that my sister actually had to hold the cake up in front of him to reach with his mouth! He’s such a smart cookie!

Once he was done eating the cake–well, actually his mommy had to take it away from him! He wasn’t very happy about that, but after he was basically washed down with many, many wipes, he was rewarded with his new toys! He quickly went back to his tool belt and started waving it around in the air. This was also the time where half of the guests were leaving to go home. Russell and dad were one of the firsts to leave because we needed them to be ready to get back into the house, which was a fun mini adventure on its own!

My mom and I left about 10 minutes later, but we were going to get food from Applebee’s and it was roughly a 20-25 minute wait to pick everything up, we decided to go look at the expensive houses in town. I’ve been watching Property Brothers like crazy lately so this was my jam! However between the two of us, we realized how different our tastes in houses were as far as exterior design goes! I still love my ranch-style houses, but even I started finding some of these larger houses to be very beautiful, especially that Tudor house! Once our 20 minutes were up, we went to pick up our food and eventually made our way home!

I had an awesome time spending the day with a great bunch of people, and what I think really made it better was the fact that after the small storm we had, the sky actually perked up. It was sunny again, which was really nice considering how much rain we’ve had in the last couple of weeks or so! I also had lots of fan watching my little nephew enjoy time with each family and friends as well!

What do you think is the most weirdest theme for a birthday? What did you think of my day too?

A-Z Disability Challenge | F : Treat Your Friends In The Way You’d Want To Be Treated

I know I’ve said this for almost every post, but for today it is really important. The topic I will be discussing is how you should treat your disabled friends. I wish this was common sense, but I guess for some people, they lack knowing how to act while hanging out with a person with any kind of disability in both private and publicly!

I am purely basing this off of my own experiences I had while I was in school, because this was the time that I saw anybody outside of my family really making the conscious decision to really hang out with me outside of having a sleep over and of course, seeing each other in classes. This was also the point in my life that I realized that I was truly different than my “friends” because whenever I was around them, I made myself forget that I was disabled. I wanted to be like them so badly that I never felt accepted to be myself, so I wanted to write this post for both sides.

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I loved birthday parties! I enjoyed getting out of the house and spending time with my friends outside of school. Although, from the ages 7 to about 10, there wasn’t anything too major that we all did together. I never played spin the bottle or seven minutes in heaven like most preteens did. Now whenever I had birthday parties and sleepovers, I was in a more controlled environment and everybody was basically forced to do what I wanted to do. After my 7th birthday and having over 20+ kids, that included a bunch of rowdy boys, came over to our house, I never had boys over ever. So, I never really had the chance to play spin the bottle like I really wanted to!

I think my favorite parties were over at Haley and Zack’s houses. I’ve been friends with both of them for YEARS! I met Haley in kindergarten, she was my first true friend and Zack’s grandparents lived really close to mine, so we’d see each other almost every other weekend. Anyways, I loved going to their parties. Whenever I would go over to Haley’s, we would be indoors, but when I was attending Zack’s, we were mostly outdoors, sitting by the bonfire, or at least I was. Both made sure to include me as best as they could, but there were a lot of things that they were doing that I knew I couldn’t do, so I felt conflicted a lot of the times, but whenever I’d get in that little funk, I’d end up talking to their families. I love both of their mothers, and whenever I see them, we’ll talk and hug each other!

Once we all got into high school, it was almost like, everybody was too uncool to have sleepovers. I had the hardest time finding people that wanted or had the time to sleep over at my house. I rarely slept at anybody’s house other than my friend Haley and with my cousin Kristi. There was a reason for this though, after I had my back surgeries I grew a lot both in height and weight,  in a short period of time, and it wasn’t until probably 2008 that I began to feel okay with somebody touching my back again. I was still pretty fragile by the time I hit middle school to the end of junior year of high school. This is why I only hung out at two people’s houses, because only two adults were really comfortable and basically took up the challenge to lift me up stairs, beds, couches, etc.

It wasn’t until the end of high school, were things really started to change. There is nothing like a broken heart, especially when it’s caused by your friends. Boys will come and go, but I think I cried more about not being to hang out with my friends. It was never like I wasn’t allowed to go out because my parents said so, it was the fact that nobody would do it. It wasn’t until my 18th birthday that I actually had a friend of mine, take me out. One person.

So, imagine the disappointment when I was told that I was going to get picked up to go out to eat with some friends and I never got a call or a text that said “they were right outside.” In that moment, I truly hated the body I was born in, because I thought if I wasn’t like this, I could be driving my own car, picking them up, and we’d be happy as clowns. Instead, I sat in my room permanently attached to my mom’s shoulder as the minutes trickled by and I received no messages.

It wasn’t until my mom basically said this is not right and packed us up, she texted my cousin Kristi to see if she wanted to go putt-putting that afternoon. While we were at a stop light, I got a text message from the same person I was supposed to be waiting on, asking if I was there already because they’d seen my mom’s car–still didn’t get the message that they were going to pick me up like they said–so I quickly realized that the whole thing was a big joke and that I got excited for no absolutely fucking reason! I know it’s been over 8 years, but I still feel somewhat hurt about this! Friends should never make you feel like that, ever! I can never literally look forward to anything because of this one outing that never happened. It’s okay though, my mom, sister, Kristi and I had fun at miniature golf anyways!

I do worry about these younger generation of disabled kids and teens, because I know how I was and how I dealt with my pain of never feeling like you are enough for roughly anybody. It wasn’t healthy and I know that now. It wasn’t until 2012, two years after I graduated from high school, that I truly began to really love myself for who I was. I started treating myself better! Unfortunately, I’m still not good at keeping up with my friendships, and it’s probably stemmed from this past experiences and other stuff. That’s why it’s highly important to always remember to treat your friends, whether they are able or disabled, like you would want to be treated.

The End.

Do you have any advice for the younger generations on how to treat other people? Were you ever put in the same situations? How did you make it out? Let me know!

What I Love About Afternoon Tea!

Hello!

Last October, when I stayed at my mom’s work while she recovered from her second surgery, my nana and I got to have a lot of fun together and one of the things we both got to enjoy was a theme dinner there at the nursing home.

Gail who works in the activities department explained to us that they try to have four different themes in a year. She and the other girls decorate the different dining rooms and they plan with the chefs of a meal that would go with that particular theme. The one I got to enjoy was “Serenade At The Seven Seas” or something like that. I liked it. I also loved trying the different courses, but the other ladies were a bit mixed though!

The theme was called “My Fair Lady” and I guess the ladies in the activities department decorated the dinning rooms and made feathered hats or “bonnets” for the female residents! She took pictures and even wrote out the menu of what they served to the residents! I was going to use the one she made, but it had some spelling mistakes so I just redid it – later I realized I could have spelling mistakes on mine! Funny how they works!

They also had a little tea party too!

According to Gail, in the film a couple of characters host a party and they decided to recreate that with the residents, so they decorated the large activity room with very pretty and colorful table clothes and had these beautiful centerpieces in the middle of them. They looked very vintage but yet modern too! They also made the ladies hats with feathers and ribbons in crafts. My nana really loved that, but as you can see apparently so did Alex!

In 2016, I actually wanted to have an afternoon tea themed birthday party. I had so many ideas that I wanted to do. I wanted to decorate my grandparent’s kitchen table with different fabrics, and since my birthday is like the day after Halloween, I knew my nana had a large black table liner and I thought if we put that on the table itself and laid out a red runner in the middle that way it wouldn’t look too dark and gloomy for the party!

Over the course of the last two years, I’ve actually wondered what I’d serve to this tea party if I ever had one! Since I read so many of my fellow blogger friends going to afternoon tea at different hotels or just plainly at home with their family members and/or close friends., I’ve been able to figure out what all is served, and I’ve grown to love the three teared stand of food that is laid out on the table. The first thing they give you is your tea. However, I’m like the 1% that doesn’t like coffee or tea, so I’m more interested in finding a good lemonade recipe. My mom actually made a homemade strawberry lemonade last year, where she let the strawberries sit out in the juice overnight to allow the flavors to marinate together. I’m kind of partial to anything raspberry, so whenever I see a “raspberry lemonade” on a menu at a restaurant, I instantly order it! So I’d rather have a raspberry lemonade instead.

As much as I’ve gathered, you usually start with the sandwiches, they are usually placed on the bottom and bigger tear. The traditional flavors are egg salad, smoked salmon and cumber all cut in small bites so they look more dainty, and they always have the crusts cut off! Now I look on Pinterest for other ideas to make this a little bit more casual, so I am curious about creating a sandwich or two as some kind of wrap or pinwheel–using the traditional plain tortilla or having a variation of spinach or whole wheat!

On the second tear you had the scones, which apparently in the states we say the word completely wrong! I’d explain on how it’s really pronounced but I don’t even know how to describe it, so I apologize there.

I have actually seen quite a few of my favorite chefs make scones on their television programs, so I already know of some different kinds I’d like to try out. I also know that when you’re making them for the first time, they’re suppose to be crumbly, so there’s nothing wrong with them, that’s just how they’re meant to be! Ree Drummond created the Maple Oat Nut Scones after not being able to visit a Starbucks where she lives; they look really good! The way she described them on her show The Pioneer Woman they taste like a biscuit type of pancake, because it has a strong taste of maple syrup! However, I think I would have to keep the coffee out of it! And then there’s a Cheddar and Dill Scone recipe from Ina Garten, she’s made this with both cheddar and a Stilton, which is like a stronger blue cheese! She’s very inspired by French food and had a gourmet food store back in the day, so she’s figured out different ways to make a good savory scone!

Now the real question is what would I do about the clotted cream and jam that they serve alongside the scones itself? I know we don’t have the traditional clotted cream or nobody makes it to that level as the British, so the next best choice to have would either be mascarpone or cream cheese! Personally, I’ve never been in jam or perseveres, so I wouldn’t necessarily put it out as an option if it was only me, but if I had a group of people, I’d probably get a small jar of strawberry or blueberry jam, but for those who want to be really adventurous they can try out the marmalade. You know, I love the smell of that stuff because it’s like oranges, but I have never tried it before and if it was put out there on the table, I probably would like to try a small dab of it.

As far as the top layer of the stand, my thoughts have differed, sometimes I think a very casual take on decorative cupcakes would work out very nicely! You could make minis so they’d fit on the tear better. However if you wanted to add a fun twist to them, like stuffing them, it wouldn’t necessarily work on the tiny ones. I’ve noticed I keep looking into French pastries. You’d think I’ve been watching too much Ina Garten lately! So the possibility of having macrons, which is something that is on my food bucket list (yes, I do have one those! I actually need to work on that soon!) and there’s the tarts or tarlets you can make, like the Mini Raspberry Tarts that Julia Baker made on her TV show! These were so cute and seemed really easy to make! If you’re a chocoholic, in which I sort of am, you need a couple of good chocolate desserts too! Truffles would be a good idea, as you can just eat it in one bite! You could dip strawberries in chocolate or make little pote de creme (puddings!) in mason jars too.

There doesn’t seem like there’s a right or wrong way to create your own afternoon tea! If you’re interested in learning and seeing what is actually served at the teas in the United Kingdom, I have compiled a list of favorite blog posts for you! I hope you have enjoyed this post!

A Candy Shop Afternoon Tea at Conrad St. James – Lux Life | Love Is In The Air at Langham London’s Valentine’s Afternoon Tea – Fresh And Fearless | Afternoon Tea at Mr. Fogg’s Gin Parlour – Little Miss Katy | Afternoon Tea at Rockcliffe Hall – This Northern Gal | Sweet Treats: Glam Rock Afternoon Tea at K West Hotel & Spa – AbsolutelyLucy

Have you ever attended an afternoon tea before? If you have, what was it about it that you loved the most? For those of you who haven’t, have you ever been tempted to create one yourself? Let me know in the comments!