Tea Party

It shouldn't shock you to know that with three little girls in the house, we love tea parties, especially Maddie, my little chef.  We did this several years ago when Papa and Nana were visiting, and Maddie was determined not to let Annie and Da get away without having a tea party with them as well.  She planned it, and with a little help from Annie and me, carried it out. 

Maddie found a recipe for "easy petit fours" in her cupcake cookbook.  It called for melting the store bought cans of icing in the microwave and dipping the tops of cupcakes into the icing and it was then supposed to harden to look like fondant petit four icing.  First problem- no store bought icing- we had to make our own.  Apparently the point of melting the store bought icing is that all the chemicals in it make it somehow work for this recipe.  Obviously no chemicals in my homemade icing.  We ended up just icing the cupcakes, which all the girls were of course happy about.  I'm still not convinced that there exists a simple recipe for petit fours- anyone?

This tea party served as our lunch for the day, and with men in the house we had to have something a little substantial- but it could still be pretty!  Here's Maddie cutting bread into heart shapes for our tuna sandwiches...

I have to comment on the differences of attire of my girls for our tea party.  When Abbey heard tea party, she immediately wanted to borrow one of my dresses and get all fancy (no, this is not something we let her go out of the house in- it was dress up...).  Naomi, on the other hand decided to wear her ballerina outfit... because that's perfect for a tea party, right?  Maddie was taking her role of serving very seriously so she opted for the plain white tea shirt with her apron that Memommy made covering her skirt...

Our spread including heart-shaped tuna sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches, tortilla roll ups, cupcakes, and of course tea.  Below Maddie is giving directions for the meal...

Naomi enjoying her cucumber sandwich...