Fun memories #3: Tea party and tea party baking

This was a fun memory with some other TCK friends. We noticed that these girls had a kids' cookbook, so we told them we needed to have an afternoon together to try some baking, and we turned it into a tea party. These girls were also old enough to help with some of the baking, so this project was fun for kids who are a little bit older. Getting ready for the tea party was a lot of the fun. The girls were so excited. We cleared some space in their room and set up tables. Another thing that made the tea party special was using the heart table cloths. These "table cloths" are just one yard square pieces of fabric I picked up at the local market. A seamstress hemmed them for me for about 50 cents, and the fabric itself cost maybe a dollar, so there's a fun, reusable table cloth for you that cost about $1.50. We use these little one yard squares for lots of parties to make our little plastic tables look a little more special. We also set out fake flowers on the table. The girls were so excited to get things ready.
When our guests arrived, we made the cupcakes together. We got icing ready while the cupcakes baked. I will try to remember to post our cupcake recipe later. For now, here's the butter cream icing recipe we used for the cupcakes:
Butter cream icing
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 lb. powdered sugar (called "icing sugar" over here)
a little water
Mix together your shortening and butter with a hand mixer. Add the powdered sugar. Add water until you get desired consistency...start with no more than 1 tsp.
When the cupcakes were ready and cool, the girls decorated them themselves. Then, we had cupcakes, ice cream, and "tea" for our tea party. They loved it.