Carolyn's 3rd Birthday - Tea Party for Toddlers

My sweet little girl just turned three years old. As you probably have already guessed one of her favorite activities to play is tea party. Therefore it was an easy decision to plan this year's birthday party as a tea party for all her toddler friends and family.

Here is my little sweet heart, she had the best time at her birthday, we really did make her dreams come true and it made me soooooo happy!

Let me show you some of my favorite parts of the decor and tell you about how I did it.

We ended up serving tea to 20 girls and boys. I rented long child height party tables and plastic chiavari chairs from a local wedding and party company. I actually had to call around a few places to find one who had 20 white chairs and they even had 10 pink chairs (so I rented a few of those in case of last minute attendees). I also rented the white table cloths and pink table runners from them too, which really helped fancy the whole affair up.

For the center pieces I raided my reenacting supply of silver tea pots (tip: you can find tarnished silver pieces at thrift stores for pretty cheap, and it doesn't even take that much work to make them pretty and shiny using either baking soda & water or silver polish). I filled them with flowers that I bought from Trader Joe's and arranged myself. Set them on paper doilies and arranged faux pearl necklaces around them.

I found these darling plastic doily chargers at the 99cent Only store for six in a pack. And designed these little place cards on my computer using clip art. The hard part was actually finding tea sets that the kids could drink out of that wouldn't break the bank. I lucked out and found several box sets in different themes at TJMaxx on clearance so I scooped them up. We only used the teacups and saucers along with the matching tea pots, even though they also came with little plates.

As guests arrived we sent them over to the hat and necklace station to decorate a hat for the party that the could also keep. I asked a couple of friends to help man the table and be in charge of the hot glue gun and it went really well!

To set-up this table I just bought around 10 bouquets of assorted flowers and ribbons from the Dollar Tree. I also supplied the table with feathers from Hobby Lobby, thinking the boys would not like flowers on their hats. Well they surprised me and the kids mixed and matched everything, we even had a four year old boy sporting a pink sunhat! The boys also loved wearing the faux pearl necklaces I bought off Oriental Trading Company. The girls sun hats also came from Dollar Tree and the boys fedoras came from Ebay.

Ben printed me this sign on his work printers and we found the mirror at a thrift store, it was black but we painted it white for the party and eventually it will be incorporated into Carolyn's new playroom.

Another activity to keep the kids busy was a coloring station that I set up. I found some cute coloring pages on the internet and printed them out and put them on clipboards so they wouldn't blow away.

Of course Carolyn's playhouse was open for business as an activity, and boy did it get a lot of attention!

This is what that side of the yard looked like all together. We also included some adult chairs knowing it's easier to interact with the kids when you can sit down at their height.

Speaking of adults, every toddler comes with a chaperone! We set up some grown-up tables on the other side of the yard in the shade so they could enjoy lunch too.

Back to kid entertainment, we were concerned with more kids than a preschool class we were going to have some kids getting bored while waiting for the festivities to begin. Luckily our neighbors were getting rid of this old coffee table, we attached our (thrift store) train set using removable poster putty to help it be like a train table you'd find in a waiting room or book store. It was super popular and held up great! Since our patio was turned into the tea party area we just moved the furniture out into the yard and borrowed the large umbrella from my parents. Never be afraid to borrow supplies for a party!

The final waiting activity I had for the kids was this bean bag toss game I found on Oriental Trading Company for only $15, well worth the money so I didn't have to make something!

You can't have a tea party without tea, inside the house (where the children were not running around) I set up my dining table with every tea pot I owned and some borrowed ones too! For the grownups I purchased these adorable paper teacups, they even came with saucers!

As is typical, I waited till the last second to set out the food and totally forgot to take a picture of it! We had scones and mini muffins from the grocery store, cucumber sandwiches, pb&j sandwiches, turkey and cheese sandwiches, Costco's Chinese chicken salad, sliced strawberries & blueberries and grapes. I tried to server foods that resembled tea fare while also being kid friendly, the salad was meant for the parents but guess what, the kids devoured it too!

I actually bought two cakes, yes bought - even though I would have LOVED to make Carolyn's birthday cake I knew my limits on what I could accomplish and so I reluctantly gave up baking the cake and bought this beautiful one from Albertson's- they referred to it as the Fondant Cake.

I didn't just buy one cake though, here's my secret I learned from weddings. I bought a second cake, a large sheet cake from Costco. We sliced and plated it while the kids were busy playing and then after we sang happy birthday we started passing out the slices to the kids while they were still sitting at the big table. It all flowed so perfectly!

I decided to skip the bag full of candy and lots of cheap toys and instead purchased little necklaces for the girls and spinning gizmo wrist bands for the boys. I found these adorable tea pot party favor boxes, probably intended for bridal showers, that they little favors fit in perfectly!

To make sure I knew who did and did not get their favor, and also so they each knew it was okay to take one in case I couldn't tell them, I printed little tags for them and used my Silhouette to cut them out.

Blue teapots for the boys and pink for the girls. We also had a couple of babies attend, so I found some adorable little teething toys for them. The tags helped make sure everyone got the right gift.

Now it's time to shift gears and see how this party went! So I've got another party secret, I totally hired an entertainer. At first I thought it was a big splurge, but then I realized that so many other components of this party actually cost more than this, and OMG she was sooooo worth the money!!!!

If you live in Southern CA I HIGHLY recommend you hire Musical Munchkins with Ms. Cindie! We love and adore this teacher, we take weekly music classes with her. All the parents watching the show were amazed at how well she engages the children.

As I said, as the kids first arrived I had them decorating their hats, then after a half hour it was Musical Munchkins time. This allowed all the kids to trickle in and all be present for our special tea time lunch. They were so excited when it was finally time to come sit down at the table set just for them.

I led them in a repeat-after-me prayer and then explained the buffet line plan. I would call them by age groups, starting with the youngest 0-2, 3-4, 5+, and their parents would help them fill their plate and come back. I had a mom assistant help me fill the tea pots with room temperature caffeine free berry tea.

I intentionally bought small teapots that the kids could pour but sometimes they liked to be waited on...

Birthday girl was too busy to even give me a smile.

Then as they finished up eating at various speeds they all ran around the yard to do the different activities. 

We snuck her inside for a quick photo with her cakes, it's required don'tcha know.

Ben really wanted to cut the cake with his sword, I said No...

My sweet dad plated all the cakes so they'd be ready for quick distribution.

We gathered all the kids back at the table to sing Happy Birthday.

And that was how we made our sweet little girl's 3rd birthday wishes come true!

I hope this helps other moms out there planning birthday parties. It wasn't the easiest birthday party, I didn't just walk into the store and buy everything with a character face printed on it, but it wasn't that hard either. And honestly it was all done in love and way worth the effort. Please feel free to ask me any questions, I'd love to help you too! These are the special days I've been waiting so much of my life for and I'm just soaking them up!