Spring Tea

I am looking forward to life getting back to normal around here.  This has been one heck of a year.  Our social hall flooded and was out of commission for months.  This totally impacted our religious education program and our Little Flowers.  We all prayed and prayed that we would have it ready by May for our Sleepover and our Tea.  We also lost our priest when he passed away on Ash Wednesday.  Needless to say, life at the parish has been crazy.  I will be going back to fill in all the gaps on this page, but decided to start with the present and work my way backwards.

Last year, we asked the Ladies Auxiliary to join us at our Tea and we continued this tradition again this year.  Planning was sooooo much easier this year.  Instead of having a dinner, we focused on just desserts and drinks.  It made life so much less stressful.  It helped also because we were able to reuse the centerpieces from last year and the lay out remained the same. 

We started with a prayer and then I shared a little about the group had done over the past year.  The pillowcases were passed out that the girls had made.  This was great because the girls were able to show the ladies what they had made.  Of course, the ladies oohh'd and aahh'd over the girls which is so wonderful. 

The dessert table was wonderful this year.  All the moms made 2-3 dozen treats and then the group provided a fruit tray.  Everything looked so pretty.  I had asked that everything be small and I think everyone liked that.  We were able to get a sampling of everything!!  We even had some of the girls' brothers helping out to serve drinks.  They all wore white shirts and dress pants.  They were looking so handsome!!

After everyone had been give the chance to eat, and I could tell the girls were getting restless, it was time for the fashion show.  I really want to stress modesty with these girls and so our fashion show is a modesty fashion show.  They start off with their tea dress and then do a wardrobe change of their play clothes.  This year, I could really see a difference with the girls as they just seemed so much more confident in their walk.  At the end, they come out wearing their aprons and sing A Song to St. Therese. The ladies loved it. 

I made a table with a display of all the virtues.  I put the virtue, scripture verse, the saint and also a picture of the activity or craft that we did on each page.  It's a great refresher for the girls to see and the ladies enjoy seeing what we are learning.

 
Here are a few of the decorations.  I have two sets of china and then we supplement with the dishes from the church.  This summer, I will be on the look at for more dishes at garage sales.

The desserts all looked so beautiful!  

I bought these beautiful edible butterflies off of Etsy.  I just couldn't resist them.

 

 

Here is one of the favors that the girls made for the tea.  On the back we put a prayer to St. Therese.  I found this beautiful idea over at Shower of Roses.  I bought the doilies on Amazon.  I just noticed that the price has gone up $4 a box since I bought them, but there are 1000 in the box and we will definitely use them.  I bought the holy cards and medals from The Society of the Little Flowers.  They were each only 15 cents each which made them to be very affordable.

 

Now that we have done this for a couple of years, we are ready to open it up to all the ladies in the parish.  Let the planning begin!!!  Well, first I need to finish washing all the table cloths and take a breath.