Anna's Par-tea

When I asked Anna what she would like to do to help celebrate her fifth birthday, she said that she wanted a tea party.  So, once school was out for the summer, that is what we did!  Though it's not my strong suit, I actually managed to do some decorating!  I found some great free printables online.  I used the banner and place cards for our guests.  You can find them here.  I also made some tissue paper flowers.  I was trying to figure out how to hang them without putting pushpins in our ceiling.  My husband and I came up with the idea of hanging them from the ceiling fan blades.

I got out my good china and everything!

When the girls arrived at 10:00 that morning, they all went downstairs to decorate foam crowns.  (I found them at Walmart in the kids' crafts section.)

Then we came upstairs for tea!

I've served my girls tea before.  I've put ice cubes in it so it won't be too hot and put in lots of honey--they still don't really like it.  So I decided instead to simply serve some punch in their tea cups.  I found a really easy recipe on Pinterest--equal parts Sprite and pink lemonade with raspberry sherbet.  It turned out to be a really pretty shade of pink, which pleased the girls from the beginning.  It was also really tasty; I think Anna had four cups of it!  Click here for recipe.

Somehow in my excitement I forgot to take a complete picture of the food table.  Here is a rundown of the menu.  Suffice it to say, since I have been enthralled with cake pops recently, many of the treats were on a stick:

1.  Cake pops
2.  Marshmallow pops
3.  Oreo Rice Krispie Treat Pops
4. Lindt variety pack of chocolate truffles
5.  Cheese and crackers (I tried to get a little something in them besides pure sugar!)
6.  Bisquick No-Roll Sugar Cookies (rolled in pink sugar, of course!)
7.  Cupcake Bites

Needless to say, we had plenty of food!  If I do this again, I think two of the homemade treats would be sufficient.

For the Rice Krispie Treat Pops, I made this recipe and cut the bars into small squares.  I dipped a lollipop stick into melted candy coating and stuck it into the bottom of each treat.  I had to use my hands some to mold it around the stick and make sure it would stay in place.  Then I drizzled them with melted chocolate and pink candy coating.

For the marshmallow pops, I dipped a lollipop sticks in candy coating and placed it about 1/2 inch into the bottom of marshmallows and allowed the candy coating to harden.  Then I placed the marshmallows in the freezer.  I dipped them into pink candy coating and immediately shook sprinkles on them.  They were super easy to make and were probably the girls' favorite treat.

After stuffing them with sugar, I had the girls go back downstairs to color their own tea sets.  You can download the coloring page here.  The girls had a really great time coloring; I was surprised at how long they stuck with it.

Anna, my budding artist, had a particularly good time with her page.  She even went back a few days later to put some final details on it!

At the end of the day, my little girl felt pretty special, and that's what I was going for!