Our princess

January was a blur -- we had Ting Ting's birthday (celebrated in three states!) and a trip to Brentwood together, then Ting Ting and I visited my friend Debi in Washington and Lance went to Germany for a week. And we hosted a family party and a Super Bowl event. That followed December with Ting Ting's family day anniversary and Christmas, so we're about partied out.

We also seem to be camera-challenged at the moment: Lance's still camera was broken last fall, and we haven't replaced it. He takes stills with his video camera, but I'm still waiting for him to get me photos from Christmas and Ting Ting's birthday. I have a camera, but the last photos I took with it were dark and blurry. Plus, I keep forgetting to take the camera with me! Fortunately, we're getting by with a little help from our friends.



Ting Ting was invited to our friend Grace's fifth birthday in mid-January, and another friend was trying out her new camera and so kindly used our daughter as a model and then sent me her photos.











The party was a "princess" party. The guests all arrived at this little shop and picked out a princess dress to wear. They got to pick out all the accoutrements and practice granting wishes. They played games and did crafts, then had "tea" and cake before Grace opened her presents.





Most of the guests were about the same age as Grace, but after hanging back and observing a little bit, Ting Ting partied along with the big girls.











She decorated the lovely crown she's wearing here.










And she was a pro at drinking tea (I cropped the other girls out of the photo for blogging purposes, but it was a really cute shot of her table).


All in all, it was a beautiful party and a fun day.

Thanks for the photos, Karen! We hope you're back in Chicago soon.

And I'll post Christmas and birthday photos before . . . oh, Valentine's day. Really.