Tea Party

Today was a rainy cold day again. We had some friends over for a mini tea party. In days past I have done a full blown tea party with linens and little finger sandwiches and way too much food. Today I did it with what we had on hand. The kids set the table with pretty sunflower dishes, Rhia's favorites, they found matching cloth napkins and placemats for each person. They put out the teacups and helped me get the teapots ready. The table looked nice and they had a sense of accomplishment. Rhia got herself and Sirah in pretty dresses and waited for her friends to arrive, two girls from our homeschool support group in pretty dresses themselves.

The kids all played for awhile while I helped their mom finish off her first crocheting project. She made a cute pink poncho for a neighbor's birthday gift - it came out great for her first project. The kids settled down at the table for an interesting tea party menu.

Today we had three types of tea: Tazo wild orange, Good Earth green tea and Stash Wild Raspberry. We set out our good sugar and cream dishes and some honey. I think each child put all three into their cups! Then for the food we had cinnamon cookies, oreos, corn muffins, raspberry jam, and ice cream. Perhaps not standard tea party food but loved by the attendees nonetheless!

Then the kids were off in their own imaginary world for the remainder of the visit, dress up, household items and toys put to good use in their stories. Sirah toddled in and out of the mix generally preferring to spend time with me and her adopted "aunt" and chatting with us.

A nice way to pass the afternoon until the sugar crash came hard this evening. I had one of those "What is wrong with you all!" moments until it dawned on me, they had sugar and caffeine and it was raining too much to burn the energy off. Ciaran gets like the energizer bunny and Rhia gets mouthy and moody. Lucky me. So it became a race to see how quickly I could get them into bed.

I was sneaky and bribed them with a favorite of theirs which actually served me quite nicely. I gave them the choice for the evening "Would you rather read books tonight or watch a movie", knowing full well they would choose the movie. I let Ciaran pick as he has not yet learned the wisdom of picking the longest movie in our collection before bed - and sure enough he picked a nice 30 minute movie. I set out a blanket on the floor and fed them dinner as they watched, then whisked them off to bed where Rhiannon and Sirah promptly crashed (their natural response to a sugar high/crash) and Ciaran snuck a bottle of pop into his room. When I came in and discovered him on the floor behind his door with it he immediately said "Someone brought this in my room and took the top off" Instead of being mad I actually had to leave the room quickly so I would not burst out laughing!

So a great afternoon, lousy early evening and a nice early bedtime. Will need to find more indoor activities as we are slated for rain again for the next few days.

Peace,
Tenn