Tea Time Thursday - Ladybugs (with Strawberry Ladybug Tutorial)

It was my son's idea to make the theme of this Thursday's tea party, ladybugs. Thanks to my husband for getting a few essentials at the grocery store late last night, we were able to pull off (what I think) is a pretty good showing for ladybugs.


I did not take part in this tea party as the table is kid size and not big enough for three people - besides, I'm not a huge fan of strawberries (I know, hard to believe). Today's tea party included lemonade for tea (must remember Lyssie does not drink lemonade), ladybug shaped strawberry open-faced jelly sandwiches with raisin polka dots, green grapes for extra color, sauteed hotdogs, sauteed carrots, bananas... and for dessert, I made strawberry ladybugs (tutorial to follow).

I also found some red gingham fabric - so made them each a napkin figuring Lyssie could use them in her play kitchen. I would have preferred to have made a table cloth, however, I only had a small piece of this fabric in my stash. A reminder that I really need to keep more gingham in my stash... and while I'm at it, I should include ric rak because I would have loved to have added that to the edges of the napkins.

The kids were happy to be able to enjoy this tea party outside like they did the first one. It was a bit breezy - but Lyssie braved it in her ladybug dress that I made her a few weeks back. Hard to believe this our fourth tea party.

We are really enjoying these tea parties and will continue to do them each week. They really break up the monotony of lunches and give the kids something to look forward to each week. Robbie has also had fun thinking of ideas for the food to fit the themes. The sandwiches this week were his idea... and he ate them up!

Apparently the first few years that Lyssie was not allowed to have strawberries has translated into her believing that she doesn't like them. I really don't know if she still has an intolerance and probably won't know for a while since I couldn't even get her to try them when they were dipped in chocolate. So her dessert for this tea party was a big glass of milk. She was a happy little girl.

To top off the tea party, we had a little visitor. Robbie had caught about 10 ladybugs yesterday and he opened the box this afternoon to let them go. One stuck around and shared the moment with the kids.

Strawberry Ladybug Tutorial

Ingredients:

• Chocolate (I used a huge Hershey Kiss that the kids were given for Christmas - just melted it down. The same would work with a chocolate bunny from Easter!)
• Strawberries
  

Step 1: Melt the chocolate. I used the stove - putting a little water in the bottom of a small pan and placing a glass bowl on top. I did this on medium heat and added the chocolate to the glass bowl. It worked great.

Step 2: While the chocolate is melting, cut your strawberries. I cut the end off and then cut the strawberry in half making a teardrop like shape.

Step 3: Dip the tip of the strawberry into the chocolate. I used a chopstick to catch the chocolate drips. Place on waxed paper (I didn't have any handy - so I just put them on the cutting board I had used for cutting the strawberries.

Step 4: To make dots, I used the chopstick. I dipped the end of the chopstick into the chocolate and made little dots on the back of the ladybug. (Sorry the picture is turned - blogger - and the qualities of photos is lacking - I was in a bit of a hurry as I had to pick my son up at the bus.)

Step 5: Place ladybugs in the refrigerator so the chocolate can harden. Lots of fun and super easy!