A Royal Tea Party

I have no reason or rhyme as to when my kids have a friend birthday party, or when it's just family. The boys have only had one friend party so far when they turned 5. Lexi had been invited to a few friend parties for the kids in her preschool group and so all I heard about was what she wanted for her birthday party with her friends. I was entering full fledged nausea fest and could hardly get off the couch most days, I had no idea how I was going to throw together a party for this little girl. While looking at the calendar, it made the most sense to have the party the Friday before her actual birthday (on Monday). We could have it mid-morning, Marc would be home to help (since he was working that Saturday). So, with just a few days, we decided to go for it. We thought a "tea party" would be fun, simple, and different. Lexi and I created some fancy invitations to take around to her friends:

We invited the kids from preschool and Lexi's cousin Claire. If everyone showed up, that would have made 8 total 3 or 4 year olds. I was crossing my fingers that not everyone would show up! lol.  My mom sent over a couple of her little tea sets and some decorations. I hit Walmart the night before the party and picked up party favors, and finger foods to eat. We spent the morning of the party getting the house cleaned up and the kitchen all decorated. We got Lexi all dressed up in her "royal" outfit and waited for guests to arrive. Even Marc and I dressed up in our fancy clothes.

The kids were cute! They were eager and excited to be there. Once everyone arrived (all but one that were invited) we sat at the table and practiced our very best manners of passing food around, saying "please" and "thank you" and not being rude about "I don't like this" before we try it. We served strawberries, cheetos, mini cadbury eggs, strudel bites, and water to drink. They loved pouring the miniature water pitchers into their tiny tea cups and drinking out of them.

Once everyone was finished, we had a treasure hunt. There were clues hidden all over the house and they had a blast looking as this little mob moved from one point to the next. The treasure chest had "royal" candy necklaces in it that they had to thread themselves. Some of the kids were really good at lacing the candies onto the thread, and some struggled dearly!

 Marc played a few rounds of ring around the rosie with the kids. Dads are awesome :)

We then opened presents. To avoid swarming, Lexi sat on the couch and the friend whose present she was opening got to sit next to her as she opened their present. Each one of the kids was so proud of their present, they were so fun to watch. Her cousin Claire was especially excited about the present she had brought for Lexi and could not stop beaming! It was great.

Next we had ice cream. I couldn't pull myself together enough to make a fancy cake like I usually do for the kids. And in my experience with teaching most of the kids, they don't eat cupcakes, they lick the frosting off and throw the rest in the garbage. Lexi prefers ice cream to cake anyway, so we got "birthday cake" ice cream and called that good.

Our party favor bags were everything girly and fancy, even for the boys, but I don't think they cared. We had lip gloss, nail polish, princess stickers, and a glow bracelet. I thought they turned out cute! Eventually, all the moms came and picked up their kids. I think they had a fun time! I crashed by the end of it. The best part about parties is when they're over ;) Most importantly, my little princess had a blast. She loved celebrating with her friends and thought it was the best party ever. Thank goodness their easy to please at this age!