Madi’s (very fancy) Tea Party

It’s funny how kids will get “stuck” on something…Parker is really into wearing orange clothes and Mickey Mouse ears and Madi carries her Bitty Baby everywhere and practices her ballet moves all over the house.

And…probably more than a month ago, Madi got it in her head that she wanted to host a tea party. I think it was mid-November, actually. We had read a Fancy Nancy book that talked about a tea party, and she just latched onto the idea with all of her might. Me, on the other hand, thought it was a passing whim, and that she would move on to something else shortly, but I was totally wrong.

As the days passed, and she kept talking about it and making pictures and gathering together snacks and game ideas for her tea party, I figured that we should probably make it happen…sooner rather than later. So, last Saturday, we hosted Madi’s (very fancy) tea party.

Well, I am my mother’s daughter (she is the ultimate party thrower) so it wasn’t too shabby of a shindig. I bought Madi a “Fancy Nancy” tiara to wear, which led to Parker wanting to wear a tiara too, and they ran around in circles just SO excited for her four little friends (plus their moms) to arrive so she could give them their goody bags…because, in her words, “they come slow but they leave fast, so we need to give them the bags first.”

Once everyone arrived, we frosted sugar cookies and decorated them with sprinkles, chocolate chips, and marshmellows. Yes, a lot of the toppings were eaten by little fingers! Then, we made this little angel craft, where at the last minute, I put out some puffy glitter glue for them to use. It was quite the mess, actually, because everyone wanted to use it – even Parker, who walked around with glue residue on his fingers for a half an hour afterwards – but hey, they had fun. Then Madi and the kids went to “play games” while I got lunch around.

Actually, Madi led the crew in some games that she had come up with, like “Run”, which involved running around the house multiple times, and “Gallop”, which meant they galloped around the house holding hands in a long train. She is definitely has bossy/leadership tendencies…you can call them whatever you want…but she has her way she wants things to go, and that’s it.

Lunch came, and this was the part that I was pretty proud about. We had grilled cheese sandwiches cut out into gingerbread man shapes, grapes/orange slices, and little jello parfaits, which were just little jello cubes layered with cool whip. Then, for dessert, we made peppermint parfaits, which were a pudding and cool whip mixture layered with oreo cookies and candy cane crumbs. It was a little minty, so some of the kids didn’t make it too far into the dessert, but it was pink and tasty. I really wasn’t going to do the extra fun stuff to eat, but I have a couple kid cookbooks that my Mom gave me that I figured…if I’m not going to use them for something like this, I will never use them.

Whew…we did it, and afterwards, I told Madi that was her last party until her birthday. She said okay, and so far she hasn’t started planning her next event, so maybe we are safe. It really was a lot of fun, especially because I knew how excited she was about it, so it was worth the extra work and added back pain afterwards…:) The things we do for our kiddos, right?