*Spring Tea Party*

Tea Party- 

Food: finger Jell-o, cheese and butterfly crackers, veggies and fruit, PB&J and turkey sandwiches cut with cookie cutters, pink lemonade with frozen raspberries and chocolate covered strawberries. For the adults, turkey sandwiches and cucumber tea sandwiches, chicken Cesar salad and peach and raspberry ice teas

Tea Pot Cake: Three-layer, teapot shaped vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream frosting in pink and green, decorated with sugar strawberries and daisies

Crafts/Games:  

Flower Hat- Straw hats decorated with wide white ribbon that the girls attached fabric flowers and jewels with "Glue-Dots" for adhesive

Tea Bag Toss-Groups of three tea bags, labeled with matching stickers, multiple crystal cut plastic bowls and cups used for a bean bag toss-type game

Musical Chairs-Set up out doors, used a version of "I'm A Little Teapot" that got progressively quicker in tempo

Pinata- Tea Pot shaped pinata with plastic rings, lip gloss, plastic butterflies, rainbow mini Slinkys, pencils and candy

I was delighted to be able to plan a party again, it had been since last summer when I did the beach party, and I was really looking forward to planning a tea party for 4 and 5 year-olds for a former student's younger sister.  

It was almost like two parties in one, since, due to their age, the parents would be staying to join in the festivities, so we planned food for the kids and food for the adults, too.  I had gone over the day before to deliver supplies, along with table cloths in pink and green and to tie pink and green tulle to the backs of the chairs. 

The day of, I arrived early to set up and prepare everything before guests started to arrive. Amazingly, the hat craft went really well.  As a teacher, I came across Glue-Dots through the Oriental Trading Company catalogue for foam craft activities and in my opinion they are worth their weight in gold.  They were just the thing for making this activity run smoothly for the 4-5 year old crowd.  We gave each girl a long piece of ribbon and laid out bowls of these flat fabric flowers I bought from the craft store and adhesive jewels. It was a good craft to do while guests trickled in too, since some kids were faster than others, it wasn't going to be done within a set time anyway.  The first ones done were good helpers too.  The moms were very impressed how well they all did and how organized the activity was, so that made my day!

After the hats were done, we set up the chairs outside for musical chairs.  I was under the assumption that all kids knew how musical chairs works, but after a practice round while the birthday girl was otherwise occupied, I was a little concerned.  Luckily, there were no tears and later the parents told me that their teacher would play it with them, however, they were never "out", which  explained the blank stares when we'd remove a chair and had them accompany it to the shady area of the yard where the parents watched the festivities.  My favorite moment was when the first "out" girl said after the game was over "That was so fun!"-I figured if she had a good time, all went pretty well!

While parents helped bring in chairs, I went over some simple etiquette rules with the girls (emphasising the importance of eating fruits, veggies and their sandwiches before diving into the enormous chocolate strawberries).  The parents then brought them over to our tea party buffet and I went around with pink lemonade served from proper teapots into their party gift little teacup. While they ate, I set up the Tea Bag Toss game for anyone who might finish early. My only regret was setting it up inside, there just wasn't enough room, but they liked throwing the yummy smelling tea bags across the room. 

After they got a chance to digest lunch, her dad set up the pinata and they headed out while I prepared cake and ice cream and chased after the mom to make sure she had stopped to get something to eat from the buffet.  The pinata was fitted with a pull-string contraption to lessen the potential hazards pinatas tend to bring in their wake, so each girl picked a string and at the count of three all pulled together.  I had packed it pretty good, maybe too good, so we had to tear into it a bit to get the flow started, but it all worked out.  We had prepared cute little purse gift bags with their names already on them for their goodies, so once they had put that away, we sang and had cake and ice cream.  

It turned out to be a huge cake and there was a ton left over, so I encouraged anyone who wanted to take some home to do so.  Even still, there was plenty for the family to have again for their own celebration later. From that point on, parents started to trickle out with their kids and their party goodies (and even some food if they liked). 

As I started to clean up and break down the party, she opened a few gifts and I again checked to make sure that her mom had stopped to eat a decent meal after a full afternoon of visiting with all the moms (and 1 dad) who had arrived with their kids.  All in all, given how action packed this party was, and the age group, I couldn't have asked for a smoother event!