For Hayden's birthday party, she chose a Mermaid Splash Party as her theme and we had a lot of fun planning it out. She really did help with the planning. She thought adults should be invited too, and that we should make sure to have chairs for them to relax in. She also suggested cheese cut in the shape of a mermaid, while acknowledging it might be a "little difficult"! She even got to help put the finishing touches on the mermaid cake.
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| carefully adding sea life |
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| Mermaid Cake!!! |
Basically we set up lots of fun wet play in our front yard for all who wanted to participate. We were "lucky" that Mother Nature wanted to help us out - the ground was a bit squishy from all the rain and at several points during the party, the 'splash water' came from above! But the kids had a BLAST running around like crazy. We made a water bed for them to play on, put out a slip-n-slide, and had lots of containers of water for ammunition for water guns and water balloons.
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| testing out the water bed |
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| even Molly got wet! |
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| let's wipe our feet off in the pool! |
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| sidewalk chalk paint - not the most successful of our activities but the kids still messed with it |
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| Eliza's first attempt at the slip-n-slide |
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| slip and slide!!!! |
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| Hayden need to "cool" off a bit |
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| the water bed was pretty cool |
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| look at that concentration for target practice (we set up some cans to shoot at) |
After an hour or so of playing, we brought everybody inside to a big beach blanket for snacks and cake. We served string cheesy octopi, monteray jack shark teeth, pineapple-mango jello starfish, pirate booty, seaweed (the real kind!), pretzel goldfish, and WATERmelon and more fruit skewers. And of course there was the mermaid cake!
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| the spread! Can you identify all the goodies!? |
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| nom, nom, nom (and they are watching part of The Little Mermaid) |
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| octopus made from string cheese! |
Everyone chowed down on snacks, sang happy birthday and then enjoyed some cake. Then we headed back outside for more water play - and Mother Nature was really helping us get wet then! We tried a couple races - fill the bucket race and mermaid tail race (also known as potato sack race, subbed in with garbage bags) but the races were not big hits with this crowd. However, the impromptu game of run around the yard throwing water at each other was a real crowd-pleaser! The party was so fun that people stayed for almost 45 minutes after it was supposed to be over! It was great fun but I do worry we may be setting the bar pretty high for future parties!
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| still had a hard time with the candles, even when we scooted her closer! |
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| I made the mermaid talk to Hayden, thanking her for FINALLY blowing out the candles. This was VERY hilarious to all the children. |
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| let them eat cake! |
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| gotcha!! |
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| wet and wild fun |
Happy birthday my little mermaid! Hope you had fun!
