The Boutique and our first Tate Date

Now that it's been almost 2 weeks since the big day, I should probably post about our boutique.  It was crazy.  My mom and Aunt Tam drove up just for the weekend to help with the boutique and they were incredibly helpful and so fun to have around.  They kept us from getting too stressed...well, my mom kept me from getting too stressed out.  Aunt Tam kind of stressed us out on occasion.  We were hoping for a much better turn out, but I guess none of us really expected it, considering that this is our first time trying to run a boutique ourselves.  We did everything we could think of to advertise, but we still had very few people come.  And yet, even with the slow traffic, we still made a good deal of money.  We had a lot of big sales, and the total at the end of the day surprised us all.  The club house looked amazing.  Our vendors really made their displays look wonderful and the clubhouse was pretty full with our 15 vendors' booths.  

 Here's my little table of baby things.  My mom set it up while I was running around like a crazy person.

 This was one of my favorite booths.  We found her from her etsy shop, Sedula.  Her name was Lili and she's from Lithuania.  Her things were so so cute.  Really pricey, but cute.

 My aunt Tam's candy table.  She really went all out.  She probably had 10 different types of candy, all wrapped up super cute with darling ribbons, tags, and signs for the table.

 Aunt Nancy's table.  She made darling home decor signs.

 My momma, hanging up all of her darling doll clothes.  I wish I could find a good place to sell them for her because they are so beautiful!

 It was a really good experience.  The hardest part, and the part that makes me think hard about doing it again, was sitting there in the club house for so many hours feeling sad for our vendors who came and spent so much time and we couldn't get people to come shop!  They all made money, and we still made money, but I felt bad that we couldn't make it more worth it for them.  I know it's just hit and miss with craft fairs.  I've done a few where I didn't make my booth fee back, and at least that wasn't the case for them.  A few of them really did quite well.  But I still wish we could have had a better turn out for them.  Oh well.  I'm still really glad we tried it.  I think I need a few more weeks before I decide if I'm up for another go though!
I should also mention that Glenn was ridiculously supportive through the whole thing.  My favorite form of his support was that when I got home from the boutique at the end of the day, I found that he had cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed the house, and cleaned all the bathrooms.  Yep, he's that awesome.

The next week we took Tate on our first ever "Tate Date".  We found out that Mary Poppins was coming to town and I could not resist getting tickets and taking Tate!  We got a sitter for Finny and Tate, Glenn, and I went to the show.  We watched clips from the show online and talked about what a Broadway play was and what kinds of things he was going to see.  We talked about theatre etiquette and when he should clap to let the actors know he liked it.  It was so fun!  Here we are before the show.  Gotta love Tate's "Smile for the camera" smile.  Wow.

 He was so sweet during the show.  He whispered when he wanted to tell us something or ask a question.  He clapped immediately after every song and was really enthusiastic about it.  My favorite song was "step in time".  The dancing was incredible and at one point Bert walked up one side of the proscenium, danced across the top upside-down, and walked down the other side.  It was awesome.  Tate's favorite song changes every time you ask him.  He liked Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious of course, and step in time (which he calls "the one on the roof"), and It's a Jolly Holiday with Mary, when the statues come alive in the park.  He thought that was pretty cool.
It was very late, and we were surprised that he lasted as long as he did.  But by the end of the play he couldn't hold out any longer.  He stretched out across our laps and fell right to sleep with about a half hour left in the show.

It was so fun to share that with him.  I think there will be more Tate Dates in the future.  And eventually there should be Finn Dates too.  It was great to spoil and spend time with just one at a time and make him feel special.  The next day we flew to Arizona for Adam's graduation (another post, of course), and he kept telling everyone at the airport, "I just went to my first Broadway play last night!"