Tea Party part four

After the girls crafted and cookied we sat down and read Tea for Ruby. They loved it! I was a tad worried they would like this part but my Zoe Bug is a big book lover and I wanted to do that for her. Luckily they all seemed to enjoy it. Another reason I wanted to read Tea for Ruby is because is taught tea party etiquette. How to sit, say please and thank you, great your guests (which I totally had Zoe do for each and everyone of them- and she had to take their coats and place them on her bed- along with the moms...so sweet) anywhosit...so on and so forth with the etiquette.

After the story each girl found their flower and took their seat. And they proceeded to stare blankly at the table. They had no clue what to do...it was funny. My mom and I got them started on their tea. Slowly but surely they all dove in. Here is what was on the menu...

Three kinds of tea with sugar cubes

Strawberry scones

Maple cinnamon scones

Mini cinnamon sugar muffins

Mini cookie sandwiches dipped in sprinkles

Carrot sticks- for good measure (;

PB & J cut out with heart shaped cookie cutters

Fruit cups

Mini Cupcakes

and peanuts...the only request from the birthday girl herself!

Some girls ate ok, but for the most part they picked and didn't really eat. But it was still just so pretty. I used my moms antique tea cups (her idea not mine!) and set everything out on glass platters. It was just so lovely.

I should add that nothing got broken until hubby was driving the tea cups and tea pots back to Moms house...something must have shifted and part of one of the tea pots broke off. I. Felt. Horrible!

Tea Party part three

I decided to do something crafty for Zoe's party and since we were taking cute teacup photos of each girl. Painting a frame seemed to make the most sense! So, I threw some of Steve's t-shirts over their party outfits and got them all painting! What a beautiful mess! I only used pink, purple, blue, and white paint. This way no matter how much mixing happened they would only end up with a shade of purple instead of brown. You could also do combos like red, yellow, orange, and white or green, blue, yellow, and white...so on and so forth, but you get the idea. As the girls finished painting I had coloring pages and activity sheets for them to work on while they waited.

After painting I sent the girls to the bath room to wash their hands and moved all the painting supplies and frames to the counter. Rolled up the plastic table cloth and set out mini flower shaped cookies. The table cover was the trick here...all of this happened within minutes! Of course having names on plates and cookies pre-bagged didn't hurt either. Once the girls were back I showed them how to squeeze a large amount of frosting from a tube onto a cookie and sandwich it together. Then we dipped the edges in sprinkles and put them back in the bags. I added a label to the top with their names so they could have a treat for later. I actually did this largely due to the fact that I baked 150 mini cookies for tea and needed to do something with the massive amount of leftovers!!! If your curious here is the cookie recipe I used... it is a favorite!

I would say both these activities went over really well! Only one tiny blue speck on my wall...but that is why I used washable paint!

Happy Heart Day!

We celebrated our Valentine's Day yesterday because Steve won't be home till late. So yesterday morning we started the day with a heart shaped pancake breakfast! Heart shaped panckaes are actually very easy to do. Just pour the batter into the pan in a "V" shape...it forms a heart from there. Add a little food coloring and you can even have pink heart shaped pancakes!

And of course this morning for a little special treat I made cinnamon rolls...from a can :) But I did reroll them into a heart. I saw this around blogland somewhere.And finally, Zoe's heart shaped lunch. Did you know about this whole molding hard boiled egg thing! It's pretty cool. I found the idea here!

Happy Hearts to You! *revisited*

I first posted about these cookies on Valentine's Day in 2008. This recipe is still a favorite. Here we cut hearts and made frosting sandwiches then dipped the edges in Valentine sprinkles. I can't say enough good things about this cookie recipe. I am not a fan of the traditional cut and decorate sugar cookie...to hard. These stay softer and taste great without being too sweet....of course that is taken care of when smothered with frosting and sprinkles :)The cookie recipe can be found here. This post has been reworded and was originally posted on My Zoe Bug on 2-14-08.

Handyman Hayden is Two!

For Hayden's 2nd birthday we celebrated together as a family and threw a slightly bigger party for extended family the following week. I decided on a Handyman/construction sort of theme. Here are a few of the handmade items I threw together for his big day.

Invitations- original idea from here. I couldn't get the files to work so I just drafted my own patterns for everything. The paint brush was a favorite of min e because of the "bristles".

Happy Birthday banner-just paint chips with cut out letters, double sticked taped on, two holes punched and attached with string. Easy.

Door sign. I sketched it out from images of constructions signs I found on a google image search, and just added a party hat. This gave pleanty of chuckles to the adults at the party.Tool box party favors. That hold animal crackers just right. I will work up an animal box favor box pattern...soon...hopefully :)

Hayden's "2" shirt and hard hat

The cakes-cupcakes for his actual birthday and a cake for his party. I used Wilton's candy clay recipe for the yellow and green details on his tape measure cake. I also used this Cake Boss frosting recipe...Best. Frosting. I. Have. Ever. Made...yummmm.

I also tied balloons to some cones I found at the party supply store.

All in all I would say this was my favorite birthday party we have hosted. Simple and inexpensive.

Happy Birthday on New Years Eve

Hayden's birthday is New Years Eve. We spent the first half of the day celebrating him turning two and the second half throwing and I quote "The Best Party Ever!" That would be from Zoe as we danced our booties off in our living room celebrating the coming New Year. What fun! We also made homemade pretzels to go along with our junk food dinner. And since junk food doesn't really enter our daily diet around here this was a BIG treat. I highly recommend making soft pretzels with your kids at least once. It is actually pretty simple. I made the dough and she rolled and shaped and had a great time. I was even able to teach her how to braid.The only photo I have of our finished product is pretty crappy, but you get the idea. Here is the recipe we use. We bought some mild cheese sauce to dip them in too. Yum!I have pleanty to share from Hayden in all of his 2 year old goodness :) ...soon