Haley's Tea Party

If you've spent a lot of time with Haley, you'll know that one of her favorite things in life is a good tea party.  She's fond of tea parties at the beach, with plastic cups, salt water or lakewater for tea, and sand for sugar; tea parties in her treehouse in the backyard with only Kimball for a guest; tea parties in the bath with bubbles for sugar; and fancy teaparties with china tea cups and real tea and sugar cubes.  The only crucial ingredients are cups, a tea pot, something wet and something sugar-like in consistency.

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For months Haley has been asking to have some of her friends from school over for a tea party.  Finally, we decided we really needed to do this for her, and sent out invites to some of her little girlfriends.  It was so priceless to see how ridiculously excited she was on the tea party day itself.  She could hardly contain herself all morning, and was SOOOO serious while frosting, sprinkling, and decorating the cupcakes with tiny fairies.  Finally all the treats were ready and we set up the table and then... we still had an hour to wait.  Haley sat at her spot at the table with her hat and tutu on and waited... not so patiently.  "How many more minutes til my friends come, mama?"  When the first ones arrived, she ran out on the porch and SHOUTED at them to "COME INSIDE TO MY TEAPARTY!!!"

All her friends were dressed up in fancy dresses and frilly bows too, and they all dove into the tea party with abandon.  Or at least the treats.  Turns out no one much liked the fruit herbal tea, at least without a ton of sugar in it.  But the cupcakes, petis fours, cookies and other treats that her friends brought were all gobbled up.  After about 20 minutes, they all got up and migrated to Haley's room to play with her dress up box and all of her toys, while we got to know the parents of Haley's friends better.   Aiden was lucky to have an older sibling of one of Haley's friends show up so they could escape the girly-ness out in the backhyard. I have to say the tea party was a total success, and I hope we can do something like it again soon.

The next morning, Andy was washing all the tea party cups and saucers, and we had to laugh because a lot of the cups were full of solid sugar, and everything was stuck to everything else with a glue-paste of copious sugar melted in a bit of hot tea!