The boys Mad Hatter Party...

A week ago, Wednesday (March 31ST) , the boys had their "play date" friends over for a Mad Hatter Tea Party. Everybody knows that at a tea party, one must dress their best and so for this very reason all the boys came with their silliest ties/bow ties tied around their necks and they wore top hats (a.k.a. their Mad Hatter Hats)... one little friend even came wearing a dress coat.  Fancy that! It wasn't required but he decided to come "dressed to the nines" that afternoon.

To prepare for the tea party, first I decorated the table in vibrant Spring colors (green, blue, purple and yellow), then I set out my finest little tea cups and saucers (I found them at The Land of Nod) and hung colorful Chinese lanterns from the dining room ceiling.

I downloaded the entire Disney "Alice in Wonderland" soundtrack off of iTunes to liven our place up (it would be just plain MAD to throw a Mad Hatter Tea Party with out the tea cup song they play at Disneyland) and I tried my best to make some cute Mad Hatter Hats for each of the guests. I used some cheap black plastic top hats I found at the party store, some fun, colorful ribbon to tie around them and then cut some stationary to make the tags...they didn't look exactly like Disney's version of a Mad Hatter Hat, but they suited the cause and our guests were pretty pleased with them.

 In place of cucumber sandwiches, 

I served our tea drinking partiers peanut butter and jelly instead.

The guests also dabbled on carrots, 

chocolate dipped strawberries, cheesy popcorn, marshmallow bunnies and Go-gurts.

I set out a platter of cookies for our guests.  

They were adorable little Mad Hatter Hat cookies, 

and Cheshire Cat cookies, 

Queen of Hearts Cookies, 

White Rabbit sugar cookies 

and little cookies that read "Eat Me"...   

I wish I could take the credit for baking and decorating these cookies but I'd be lying; 

fact is I ordered all of the cookies from my favorite bakery, Dippidee.  

They were even kind enough to decorate 6 gluten free sugar cookies I took them 

to look like the Queen of Hearts, The Cheshire Cat and the "Eat Me" cookies 

so Noah could enjoy a cookie too at his own tea party! 

(He's severely allergic to gluten now too).

In place of cream in the little creamers, 

I poured Agave Nectar (it's like honey) 

and in place of sugar in the sugar pots, I used blue Pop Rocks!  

Funny story about the pop rocks:  I advised our guests that they should only put one teaspoon of sugar into their tea; by doing so it made some fun crackling/popping noises! For those who chose to pour more than one teaspoon of sugar into their tea, like say 2 or 3 spoon fulls, well they sure got a SURPRISE!  We had Pop Pocks flying out from different tea cups all across the table!  Some of the kids got hit in the forehead by Pop Rocks, others had it land in their hair.  I warned them! It was certainly a MAD tea party for that very reason!  Don't worry though, no body got hurt.

In place of the tea, 

our little party guests drank V8 Splash Berry Blend juice 

from my favorite red polka-dotted tea pot 

(seriously if we ever had a fire in our home, 

aside from getting my kids quickly outside safe and sound, 

I'd grab this tea pot! I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!).  

The kids didn't even have any idea that they WEREN'T really drinking tea 

because I convinced them it WAS tea!  

I also filled a couple of other smaller tea pots with water

and from my silver tea pot they sipped on some Beary Blue Hot Chocolate.

Our tea party guests were...

...Tate.

...Daniel...

...Adam...

...Logan...

...of course Noah attended his own tea party...

... Ian was around for tea too 

(but he refused to wear his blue polka-dot bow tie to tea)...

... our guest of honor was Bella!

Noah decided that Bella was Alice.  We don't normally make exceptions during our play dates and let girls crash the fun, but we allowed it JUST this one time.  Besides, Bella knows how to play along with boys, she has 5 brothers!

Before getting the party started, I discussed some "tea ettiquette" with the kids... I was slightly worried that I'd see some broken tea cups by the end of it all, but to my good fortune, NOT ONE was broken!

But this child (Noah) insisted on trying to bite his tea cup 

just like the March Hare does in the movie!

Neither tooth nor tea cup was chipped, thank goodness!

Oh, by the way, Adam, the kid on the left just above, told me he wanted to be the lizard... you know, the lizard who sweeps the chimneys in Alice in Wonderland. Ha!

In this picture below the boys decided to say "Cheers" and tap each others tea cups...

again, I held my breath for a moment during this time, praying none of the glasses would chip or break!

The kids all seemed to be enjoying themselves; 

particularly this little fellow... Daniel.  

After all the kids had finished up eating and drinking tea, 

then moved onto some other room of the house to play, 

Daniel was still seated at the table eating one strawberry after another!

Once everyone was finished eating, Daniel included, our activities got underway.  Originally, I had hoped the weather could had been nicer than it was that morning/afternoon.  It snowed a little the evening before and continued to rain all day long ruining most of which plans I had to let the kids play outside.  I was going to let them play croquet and jump on the inflatable bouncer but instead they just played inside.  When the rain did stop for a little bit, I let them go outside and do egg races balancing the egg on their spoons, trying not to drop the eggs.  Those kids must had let their eggs all drop at least 4 dozen times! It's really a good thing they were just fake eggs.

Tate was the only one who completed the course with out trying to use his hands to hold the egg on his spoon.  

All the other kids thought they were smarty pants and cupped the eggs on their spoons with their hands; they never even stopped to think that they were cheating.  Silly kids!

It started to sprinkle a little, 

so I moved the gang into my garage where they did relay sack races. 

I expected a few of them to fall while doing the race and cry due to the fall, 

but it surprised me that NOT one of them DID cry!  

After doing relay sack races, we went back inside, as it was beginning to rain harder and harder.
Inside we played the balloon game; you know, the game where you tie a balloon or two around your ankles and try to stomp and pop other peoples balloons with out letting yours get popped... yeah that game.

The night before I nearly passed out blowing up 30 balloons!

The kids were REALLY SUPER EXCITED to play this game

even before I explained the rules to them; 

that's probably because it had balloons!

All the kids REALLY went at it!

They all had a RIOT!...

...well everyone except for Bella. 

She wanted me to pop her balloons just so she could be out of the game. 

I don't think she liked having boys chase her.  

I don't blame her; 

but I'll bet you that in another 3 years or so when she's in grade school she'll be loving the chase!

 

Some of the boys were using their teeth to pop others balloons 

and some of them discovered that sitting on balloons worked well popping them too!

I explained to the kids at least 3 or 4 times that if their balloon should get popped it was "OK" and they didn't need to cry about it because that was the point of the game...

...well when someone popped Noah's balloon, HE WAS NOT HAPPY and this is what happened...

Yes that's my kid... 

THE SORE LOOSER.

He cried and cried about it and even decided to sit on his other balloon he still had left 

just so no one else could pop it.  

I had to laugh, just as the party was near it's end and right before the mothers came to pick up their kids, I had 7 kids running around me in CIRCLES!  Yes, the balloon stomping game REALLY got them all RILED up... and in the background of it all I heard the song from The Caucus Race scene in Alice Wonderland playing; ironically I felt like Alice in Wonderland at that very moment!

I think/hope all the kids had a good time.  My boys have been begging me for tea ever since, matter of fact.  My sister Tricia told me I just need to have a girl one of these days so I can pull off a tea party when ever I want.  It's true.  It would be nice some day to have a daughter so I can play tea party with her, but for now, I think I pulled a nice "MANLY" Mad Hatter Tea Party very well!