5 year old's birthday party!

[tyandskyesmom]

My baby is turning 5 in less than a month!

Well, she is having a tea party for her birthday party. We have designated it a formal affair. She has invited about 20 girls from 4-6 years old...and we expect maybe around 10 to actually come because she invited all the girls in her pre-school class and I'll only bet on about 3-4 showing up. So I have made the invites (I found cute paper that is sort of the design of fine china and I cut out a tea pot and glues that to a doilie to look like a saucer and then glued that to a card. On the front of the tea pot is a card that says "Skyler's turning 5!" in old english font. Inside is a message printed on velum held on with a pink ribbon that has "Happy Birthday" and candles printed on it. And on the back is a rub-on with a cute saying about little girls. - I am actually really happy with the way they turned out!) and planned some basic details...such as...

We are going to use a frame from a canopy and cover it with pink and white Tulle to look like a gazebo. Then we will use pink, yellow, and light blue flowers to tie back some of th etulle on the posts. The table will be covered with a white table cloth with pink lace or tulle over it. We have borrowed a silver tea pot, a white tea pot, and white irredessent (will pick up the pink and blue) tea cups and saucers from a friend. We plan to serve finger sandwiches shapes like flowers (maybe PB&J, cucumber and cream cheese, ham and cheese, egg salad), fruit kabobs, and a lot of little bite sized cookies and cakes and such. Plus cake and tea (with milk, sugar cubes, and lemon), apple juice and chocolate milk. Mommies were invited to stay also. I got hats for $1.00 each and will get some ribbons, fake flowers, and boas for the girls to decorate a hat. Lou and Skye are going to make a CD with her favorite songs on it to play during the party and to give out at party favors. We are also making necklaces for each girl with a springy charm (bugs and frogs with crystal eyes) for party favors too. The party will last about 3 hours.

Here's my problem. I need fun, not messy activities for the girls. I have a few thoughts but am just unsure about them...
* Decorate wooden jewlry boxes (can get little wooden boxes from Michael's and then we would pre-paint them in pink,yellow, and lithe blue and then the girls could decorate with gems and such.)
* Since it is a week before Easter, an egg hunt with plastic eggs with little prizes in them.
* Get the flower pots for $1.00 that have the changable, colorable inserts and have them color that then put a piece of styrofoam in the bottom and have them make felt and gumdrop (or flat lollipop) flowers to push into the styrofoam to look like flowers and then send them home with a packet of flower seeds to plant in it.

What do you guys think? Anyone ever done this kind of party? Any suggestions?

[disneyfan328]

I held a tea party for my girl scout troop last year and like you made it a formal affair. We were going to see the Ballet Alice in Wonderland so we had a Mad hatters Tea party. i dressed up as the queen of hearts and read the story to them as part of the party. We did a sugar cube game where the stack sugar cubes up to see who can build the highest tower before it fell. I also did a game but its for a little older crowd. I put "Spot of Tea" on paper and then a bunch of lines and asked the girls how many words (3 letters or more) that they could make out of that phrase. You could find Alice in Wonderland mazes or word finds on the internet ( just google it) and that may be a little more age appropriate. For my girls I also hit the garage sales and flea markets as well as resale shops and found a real china cup and saucer for each girl to take home. I let them use them during the party (we had lemonade, ice tea and apple juice) and then we washed and dried them and put mints wrapped in tulle in each one. We also played a game called the Mad Spotter - I got a package of those colored disk stickers that people use at garage sales ect (the circles are about the size of a quarter maybe a little smaller) and then I stuck them randomly here and there. I gave each girl a sheet of paper to write down where they saw spots and what color they were. I had preassigned each color a point value. The girl with the most points wins. We also got some cheap jewelry from the dollar stores and let the girls dress up. I took a picture of all of them dressed up with hats and boas and necklaces and had it printed up in Sepia Tone at Wal Mart and sent them to each girl. They were really great. Like the old time photos you can have taken and it doesn't matter if they are a little mis matched as in sepia you don't see the colors!!

Hope that helps. We had a blast with it. My girls in the troop were ages 7 to 9 and they still talk about it.

oh one more I almost forgot about. We had a dress up race - I had some old fancier gowns (bridesmaid ect.) and some shoes, gloves and hats, boas and purses and I made two piles - each pile had the same number of items. The girls had to get "dressed up" and walk over and put a sugar cube in a tea cup on a table a few yards away and come back take everything off and pass them to the next girl. and so on and so on. This was a lot of fun as well. this is all done over top of the clothes that they have on so having clothes that are bigger helps - just remind them to pick up the bottom of the dress before they try to walk.

good luck I am sure it will be a great party and it sounds like you have a lot planned.

[Stitchahula]

No ideas but it sounds really cute. I'm trying to plan my sons' 6th birthday and have no idea what to do. I hope yours is a huge success.

[crazypoohbear]

You could make up a pin the tail on the donkey game but have it place the cup on the saucer.
Make the poster with a big saucer and then blindfold the girls and have them try to stick a tea cup on the saucer.
Or.
a game of carrying a sugar cube on a small spoon with out dropping ( like an egg carry)

buy big straw hats and let them paint and glue flowers and streamers on them.

[minnie-mouse]

Party City has a really cute pin the show on Cinderella that would go over great for that age. I would maybe do a pretend dress up fashion show where the girls can take turns walking down the runway with some princess music playing. Maybe a "hot potato" game using a princess crown or something. For crafts, Michaels has cute foam crowns the girls can glue or stick foamy stickers on to decorate.