Friday, September 9, 2011

Weekly Wrap-Up: The One With the Not-So-English Tea Party

I’m a bit behind on my wrap-ups, and my schooling, because we went to Michigan for ten days.  So today I’m going to share a little bit of what we were doing before we left.

So, part of Wintercrap’s Promise’s Children Around the World program consists of having cultural gatherings after every country study.  Yeah, right.  I’m am not that mother. LOL But I was planning on making a recipe or two from each country with the occasional gathering. 

So we decided to host an English tea party since we had just finished with our study of England.   Or in our case, a not-so-English tea party.   We’re not ones for a lot of prep so we decided to do it “our way.”  Or really, my way. 

To give you an idea of what my way consists of, take a peek at the invite that I sent to a few friends.  =o)

Mackenzie would like to hold a "traditional cream tea" (if you count what I plan to do as traditional which you won't lol) tea party to celebrate surviving 3 ridiculous weeks of winter crap.  We would like y'all to come.

Note: This tea will not involve any actual tea.  Unless you count crystal light peach tea or apple juice as tea. We don't even own a tea pot.   Bring your own real tea if you insist. 

Mackenzie will probably be in fancy dress, I will not and I do not require it.  Mackenzie does require it of Ava. lol

Real scones are not what they serve at starbucks.  But boy are they easy to make.  They involve jam and clotted cream. I don't like to eat things with the word clot in them.  Plus, I looked at a recipe.  It's just whipping cream cooked in your oven on way low forever. Another involved cheese but not cream cheese. Eww!  Therefore, I will have whipped cream of the cool whip variety because I know that will taste good even if the scones don't.  And for the love of all that is proper, it's cream before jam.  Don't embarrass me by doing it backwards.

So now you have the gist of what our ghetto-fabulous tea is all about.  We served fresh scones with jam, whipped cream, and lemon curd.  I actually made the lemon curd.  In the microwave.  It was FABULOUS!!! 

We also had fairy cakes (cup cakes), decorated by Mackenzie and fresh fruit.  I didn’t think to take a picture of the spread.  I’ve never in my life forgotten to take a picture of anything before.  Go figure!  All my hard work on scones and curd and not one photo. lol

Mackenzie practiced some English quilling and decorated her “party.”  This brilliant idea came from the $15 Expedition Earth curriculum.   I made a couple myself.  It’s harder than it sounds. LOL

DSC_0277redo

DSC_0282redo

Decorating her fairy cakes.

DSC_0335redo

All ready for her party.  Check out my quilled tea cups behind her. They look better from afar. LOL

DSC_0339redo

The party guests.  I let Kayleigh invite a guest too.

DSC_0348redo

Time for Tea!  Such as it is.

DSC_0353redo

DSC_0349redo

And because I know that you all look forward to it, here’s one of our WP funnies from that week.  This is our map of Europe, with the figures for England and Ireland on it.

DSC_0263redo

DSC_0267redo

I’m predicting that this map will be totally covered before we’re finished.  We won’t even be able to tell it’s a map.  Woot!!  Imagine if they did all the European countries. LOL  I’d have to stick them on the back too.

Check out the other wrap-ups at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers

15 comments:

  1. I must tell you that I have missed your funny post last week. Looks like just my kind of tea party :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. No clotted cream?! What?! LOL Just kidding! Jake makes fabulous cherry-chocolate scones. (And I made some not-so-bad blueberry-lemon.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love how you make a "situation" so positive. Everyone looks so put together for the tea party, a wonderful way to celebrate learning. Thank you for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Your tea party looks like fun! You're a saint for sticking with Winterpromise. I chucked it after we studied Switzerland. I do think the maps are better than what they first published (this is what we received). It was one big map. Imagine those same stickers in an even smaller area (for Europe). We used the stickers as a border around the map after we covered Great Britain. If you look at my classroom post on my blog, there might be a picture. Yep, I still have that big map hanging up. :)

    I hope you have a great weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wow, what an amazing tea party! And everybody are so "put together". Looks like lots of fun!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love tea and tea parties. (I serve cocoa to those who don't like tea.) Please share how you made lemon curd in the microwave. You can even link it up with my Tasty Tuesday recipe link-up if you would like- add it in the comments there if you don't share a whole blog post. Or just e-mail me, I'd love to know a simple secret. The quilling is lovely. That is another of those many things on our list of things to try... one day.

    ReplyDelete
  7. We did actually really enjoy that year of using WinterPromise. But there are a whole lot of activities that are either entirely too much trouble, or just too much to do. The travel journal and passport were my daughter's favorite parts, and she still goes back to look at it a couple of years later, to relive her "travels."

    ReplyDelete
  8. Visiting from the crew...I absolutely loved this post! I'm going to follow you ...right...now!

    Laura Lane of Harvest Lane Cottage

    ReplyDelete
  9. I'm with you, I don't know if I could even say "clotted cream" out loud without gagging - but I'm glad your scones were fantastic and that you had fun. congratulations on surviving 3 weeks of WP. :)
    -Catherine

    ReplyDelete
  10. I love it...

    And I am so glad I didn't ever go with Winter Promise... I looked at it quite seriously once upon a time, and decided it was going to make me feel guilty all the stinkin' time.

    If my kids want hands-on, they'll do it themselves. I'm not that mom.

    ReplyDelete
  11. What fun! Love the quilling picture...

    ReplyDelete
  12. Woo hoo!!! Even the brief mention of WinterCrap did not disappoint! LOL at the expression on Mackenzie's face when she's holding the map - that kinda sums it up. ;-)

    And on a happier note... LOVE the tea party and the quilling.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I know that "clotted cream" sounds like a disgusting thing, but it's probably one of the best things I've ever eaten. It's like butter, but not.

    ReplyDelete

We love your comments. It makes the girls giggle even more.