So last week, the girls were REALLY in need of a break and some fun time with mom. They had been bugging me about a tea party I promised them for a long time and I decided that it was a great time to do that. We had done a tea party with God last time and I really like having a theme like that. Several things converged to make Queen Esther my choice for this tea party. Here are some of the things we did.
Story of Esther
We read the story of Esther from our Brave Girls Bible Stories book (you can win a copy here until 11/3/14!). You could also watch the Veggie Tales Esther movie or read it directly from the bible. I liked the Brave Girls version because it did a fabulous job of touching on the fact that they took her and primped her for 12 months making her look gorgeous for King Xerxes, leading us to…
Spa Treatment
We had been reading a spa party ebook and my little girls LOVE to be pampered. I decided to treat them to a foot soak and a hand scrub. The foot soak, I had around for a while, but the hand scrub was a mix of coconut oil, brown sugar and vanilla. It smelled heavenly!
After we were done, I painted their fingers and toes, and even used a little of the makeup they had gotten at the Bibbity Bobbity Boutique and we talked about several things:
- how God was able to use Esther’s beauty to save her people.
- whether or not the King would have picked her if she had been an ugly old hag (think Queen in Snow White).
- taking care of all the gifts God has given us, including our bodies and our beauty so that God can use them.
- inner beauty and outer beauty
Crowns & Scepters
If you wanted to “go in order,” you would have had them decorate crowns & scepters next. We didn’t because we wanted to take advantage of little bro’s nap to prepare lunch and eat :). We did have the girls decorate crowns & scepters after lunch. I was at Jo-Ann’s the day before and bought foam crowns and wands that they decorated with glitter glue. It would be super easy to make them from construction paper and we’ve done that LOTS of times.
Tea Party
Finally, we had our tea party. Because this is a tea party with little kids, we weren’t “proper” at all. We had just gotten the Pink Princess Cookbook and the girls picked out about every recipe. Instead, we narrowed it down to three :).
As far as I am concerned, every tea party needs:
- special drink (tea or otherwise)
- sandwich assortment
- fruit of some sort
- a dessert
For our special drink, we tried a rainbow milk recipe with chocolate almond milk, bananas, vanilla and cinnamon. Good, but I made more than we could drink.
I made three kinds of tea sandwiches, by which I mean no crusts and on white bread, which we don’t normally have around :). We had pb & j, turkey, and a recipe from the book which was an open-faced sandwich made from strawberry cream cheese and sliced strawberries. They fought the last but my oldest ate 3 of them!
We also made sugar cookies the day before and decorated them in the morning before the Spa Treatment so the frosting would get hard. They were fabulous recipes — SO easy to work with that even I didn’t screw it up. I even had 3 helpers with one who screamed for chocolate covered cherries. You do what you have to do ;).
And finally, we had sliced strawberries.
Gift
We were all dressed up for our tea in dresses with hats and gloves. While we could have gone all out and wore church dresses and the like, I decided not to this time. The girls picked out their favorite play dresses very specifically that morning knowing that we were having a tea party that day. I did have a special gift that I bought for them — a pearl necklace. I shared the bible verse about a woman worth more than pearls (or ruby’s depending on your bible translation).
They showed them off to daddy when he came home from work. That led to a discussion with daddy later about Tahitian Black Pearls that we didn’t buy when we were there over a decade ago — and then we found pictures and talked about how expensive a single pearl necklace is. In fact, we just bought a new to us van a week or two ago and most of those pieces of pearl jewelry cost more than the van we just bought.
Act of Service
At the end of our tea party, we performed an act of service. The girls bundled up a plate full of the cookies they had so carefully cut out and frosted and took them next door to daddy’s office to share with our employees. We picked a good day because EVERYONE was there, even our sales guy who isn’t often there.
They also helped hand wash the china which totally counts, too, in my opinion 🙂
Overall, it was a FULL day of fun and the girls greatly enjoyed it. Because of my liking for “fancy” things, we have a lot of the things we needed for pulling off a tea party without lots of preparation or shopping. I would like some doilies and some more trays and things, but that can be built up slowly via resale shop :).
Do you have tea parties with your girls? If not, why not?
If this looks like fun but seems overwhelming, check out this post: Tea with God — In Under an Hour!