The Water Park Birthday Party

This party was a HUGE hit!  It was a wonderful hot day and our yard was filled with fun water-based activities.

My plan of action for themed parties is to get a couple good ideas, scale them back and then throw in a few original thoughts of my own.

I tried to use Pinterest to help me get started...  I think I am the only 30-something suburban Mom who dislikes Pinterest.  It makes me see what I could do - if only I had a whole lot more skill, time and creativity.  It makes me feel bad, just bad.  Sorry, but that is the truth.  I did use one idea from my Water Party board - I tried the tie-dye shirt (with a bandana).  Let me just say, it didn't look like the picture.  At all.

So, I actually found this link the most useful for an organized, but slightly creatively stunted person like myself.  It's just a long paragraph explaining how they planned their party.  Perfect!  I took a lot of their great ideas and made them work in our much smaller yard and party.

I first made signs for each of the "attractions" and labeled each area.  The Super Jump was our water balloon filled trampoline.  I had planned on 500 water balloons.  I'm not sure we made it to that many, but Matt and the girls worked on filling water balloons for most of the morning before the party.

The party included stations:  trampoline, slip n' slide, water slide, fishing pond, drinks, tattoos and bandana painting.  It was enough to keep the kids moving from one thing to the other and not bored.  We also had pizza and cake, plus popsicles to keep everyone cool.  It was a super fun party!

This photo doesn't capture her catapulting off the end of the slide and almost into the fence.  It was awesome!

I made these cute squirt bottles for the kids to play with at the party and then take home after.  I'll do a quick tutorial next week!  Easy peasy and they were used a ton.

And a few party pictures to show the whole thing in action.

Most of all it was the smile on my brand new 7 year old's face that made it worth it. She got a bit jilted last year since we were moving on her birthday and the years before that she didn't really have enough of her own friends to have a party.  Plus, her birthday is at the end of the summer and a lot of friends are forgotten, have moved or are traveling.  We were so thankful that almost all her closest friends were able to come.