Feb 28 2007
Come to Tea - lots of fun party ideas, crafts and recipes
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We’re less than two weeks away to Lucie’s fourth birthday. I’m planning birthday treats at preschool and at our mom’s club playgroup. I have an egg-free mix, Cherrybrook Kitchen Chocolate Cake Mix, to make cupcakes and lots of purple frosting leftover from Nathan’s birthday party last week. My homemade icing - basically Spectrum Shortening (it’s organic and transfat free), artificial flavoring, water and powdered sugar - stays good for a month in the frig.
If it’s o.k. with the teachers, I’ll be giving out some goodie bags too. I have lots of rubber ducks, bookmarks, and little book giveaways left over from my Usborne Books business. (I’ve shut it down this year to concentrate on my writing.) This way the kids will have cool stuff to play with and no sweets to freak out the parents.
Next year when she’s a bit bigger, I may do a party at home in addition to one at school. I found a terrific book to help out with party theme ideas and activities - Come to Tea: Fun Tea Party Themes, Recipes, Crafts, Games, Etiquette and More
I liked this food idea for the teddy bear party. It’s easily changed to several types of parties as long as you have the appropriately shaped cookie cutter
Beary Good Sandwiches
Makes 2 sandwiches
Ingredients:
Four pieces of white bread
Fillings (your choice):
- 2 Tbs of peanut butter mixed with 2 Tbs of honey (Lucie would use cream cheese or butter and honey since she can’t eat peanut butter)
- Cheese slices
- Sandwich meats
- Mustard and/or ketchup
(A favorite combo of Lucie’s is bologna and ketchup. She’s a white trash kinda kid, dontcha know?)
Directions:
- Make sandwiches out of white bread and cut out bear shapes with a large cookie cutter.
- Fill on sandwich with honey spread and the other with cheese and meat. Use condiments to decorate faces on the meat sandwich if you like.
(Sandwich picture courtesy of Moriza’s Photos on Flickr.)
electric fireplace
I’ve seen that Come to Tea book at the bookstore. I know that it is something that my daughter would love!
Rent an astro jump and have other activites like, baseball, and face painting. My sister did this for my nephew when he was 5yrs old. It was like our own little carnival. The kids really enjoyed!We are doing the same next week for my son’s 4th birthday!!
Plan a bowling party. The kids love it. I didn’t care for the honey with the peanut butter idea; and most of us don’t have a bookstore with leftovers to hand out.
For my daughters 4 yr birthday last year we ordered a pony. They gave the kids pony rides and let the kids feed her. The company also has other animals for small petting zoos. It was a huge hit and very inexpensive. It made great photos as well.
My approach to children’s parties is really pretty simple and have always gotten rave reviews from friends and family. I allow my son to choose the theme and I choose age appropriate games and decorations for the party. He’s excited because he gets to help and choose and sees his favorite character, etc. and I get to manage budgets and keep all the guests happy as well. Being a rather creative and organized person helps of course, lol.
i have 2 girls, one is turning 4 middle of april and one is turning 11 end of may.
We blend bd’s somewhere in the middle to celebrate with all the family, something we all can enjoy — chucky cheese, picnic at park, pizza party, use coupons for pizza or chucky ch. from sunday papers
this year we are getting married so its going to be simple but fun– we are taking them to the ymca, and told them to invite friends who already have membership, and celebrate with hotdogs, beans, and box cake. and this time we are going to have picnic lunch with family at a park. add some balloons and they think its great
for his 3rd birthday he wanted a Chuckie Cheese party; 6 kids, the parents are the only ones who ate pizza, 2 kids ran away from scary Chuckie, 1 fell asleep, my 2 nieces & my son had a blast & cost about $110. For his 4th birthday, my son wanted a party at a playground we go to all the time for 2-5 yro. There’s a shelter where we hung a ‘Cars’ pinata full of trinkets & fruit packages, lots of tables, park was free, running water for balloons, squirt guns and bathrooms across the street at a floral garden which we walked through, the kids loved all the different kinds of flowers. We had ‘car cupcakes’, healthy snacks, box juice, prizes, dollar store water toys & my son has begged me all year to have his 5th birthday there - thats in June. He still tells everyone that his last birthday was the bestest & since he knows its coming soon he’s already asking kids to come. He thinks he wants dinosaurs this time. The greatest thing out of this party was this absolutely wonderful smile that he had on his face for days after. Oh & it only cost about $35.00 for food & junk.