Tea Party

Something that I have thought of a lot since I went to the He Remembers the Barren retreat last year is how I can help others since my boys are getting older and more independent. When we came up for the idea of Girls Club/Boys Club/One mom break, I was excited to have a chance to do girly activities with girls since I am the only female in our house.

I had the girls first in September. I spent my Labor Day weekend making the girls aprons. I have not spent much time sewing since Lamb 1 was born so they took longer than I expected. I'm a perfectionist and I know there are mistakes, but they were completed and acceptable by me to give as gifts.

I dropped my boys off and picked up the girls. I was surprised that the drive home was conversation about all the times in their life they have puked. It wasn't what I expected for GIRLS club!

When they got back to my house there were presents waiting for them.

I had asked them their favorite colors and the presents were lime green, turquoise, purple, and pink just as they requested. I had a difficult time choosing the purple and pink-do you choose light or dark purple and pink? I had purple and green wrapping paper and I found some tissue paper that was turquoise and pink. I was going to buy bows but I figured out I had ribbon in the right colors.

When the girls opened the presents, they couldn't believe I had made them. Joelle's daughter seemed shocked that I knew how to sew and made them myself. It made the time making the aprons worth it when they appreciated them so much. They were excited to put them on right away. I made them large, the 12 year old's is an adult pattern, and hopefully they can wear these for a few years.

We then spent some time discussing our plans for the rest of the afternoon. I chose to have them make the food and we would have a tea party. I gave them some options for sandwiches and desserts and they got to work making the food.

I will forever remember E, the 5 year old, just climbed right up on my counter and got to work on the egg salad. Of course it was important to them that everyone got to do everything for an equal amount of time. My plans were to break them into two groups and assign different tasks to each group. That didn't work because everyone wanted a turn to smash the eggs for egg salad and each thing we were making. The girls were a little disappointed that they didn't do much baking, I had store bought cookie dough to bake etc. I told them next time we will do more baking, but this time the focus was to have a tea party. It ended up being good to have this time so I know better how to organize a baking day with them next time.

The girls made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, ham and cheese tortilla roll ups, and egg salad "boats". I made very small plain scones before they came and they baked some frozen store bought chocolate chip scones. We made whipped cream. I required them to try one homemade scone with lemon curd and there were lots of other toppings for them. For dessert they made chocolate cookies and s'more cookies and we also had frozen chocolate strawberries and chocolate bananas. One girl chose apple juice but the rest chose iced tea. I couldn't convince them to try hot tea-they had my iced tea before and wanted that again!

Egg Salad Boats

Ham and Cheese Roll Ups

Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches

Homemade Scones on top, Store Bought Scones on bottom

Top: Frozen chocolate covered strawberries and bananas
Bottom: Chocolate cookies and S'more Cookies

I had asked the girls to bring dress up clothes for our tea party. They all wore skirts as play clothes when they came to my house and my first thought was that they would not have needed to bring dress up clothes. But they were very excited about dressing up. I was the waitress and served them during their tea party. There was a lot of food and they were full quickly. I suggested they change back into their play clothes but they wanted to stay dressed up. 

I had planned to have them help me clean up but I could see from what happened when they made the food that wasn't going to work very well. 4 girls and 1 adult in a kitchen that wasn't familiar to them wasn't going to make clean up very smooth. I had got some china and special dishes out and didn't want anything to get broken during clean up. Since they didn't want to change clothes I let them talk and play while I quickly cleaned up. They went upstairs and it sounded like it was getting pretty wild. Again, not what I expected with girls! I suggested they come downstairs and we play a board game or card game together. I suggested several games but they saw my boys had scores from the Game of Life listed in our schoolroom. They got the idea to play Life and couldn't be talked into a different game. So I ended up playing Life on the girls day which is something I often do with my boys!

One girl didn't want to play but we talked her into it. We ran out of time and did not get to finish the game. Looking back, we should have played a quicker, easier to learn the rules, game. But we had a lot of fun anyway.

By my entryway they had a mess of clothes and shoes, again not what I expected with girls. But they were all ready with everything right by my front door when it was time to go. The time went quickly and before we knew it my boys were home and it was time for them to go. My boys enjoyed the tea party leftovers for supper that night.

We had a fun day and we all look forward to the next girls club at my house, probably in January. I have promised that next time will be a baking day. Joelle, I have these files of pictures all ready to give you, you don't need to ask for them!