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.

12 year old birthday

This year the request was a small party with a nice dinner out.  She recently fell in love with Indian food so we headed to the nearest Indian restaurant in town.  Anna invited one close friend and they had a movie/sleepover night after dinner.  The night reflected the in betweenness of the age of 12.  She wanted to be with her friend but wanted everyone else there too.  She's between so many different stages, sometimes I think she's not sure how to feel.

Anna is a fun person to celebrate.  She reacts perfectly to praise and adoration and we all enjoyed being with her on her special day.  The girls always have the choice to invite their sisters or not and I was glad that Anna chose to involve them.

My homemade cakes are getting better.  This one wasn't tipping too much in any direction.  Phew.

At the restaurant.  The biggest issue was the TV playing Bollywood style videos throughout the meal.  Some of them were a bit strange and we did some seat swapping to keep the peace.

Anna's been wearing her new watch a lot.

A cute hat for a cute girl.

This hat totally fits Anna's personality.  Just awesome.

A lot of candles!

A candy birthday

I'm not a big party planner but, I do enjoy making each birthday a special day. This year Claire had her party before her actual birthday, so she will have another very small celebration this week.

I decided to turn the living room into Claire's Sweet Shop.  Everyone got a bag and helped themselves to an assortment of candy.  They also were free to eat candy during the party.  Only 3 people had cake. Claire had several friends from school and then our dearest, ever present friend Allie from our old neighborhood.  She holds a special place in each girl's heart and is invited to nearly every party we have.  And she honestly has fun and plays along despite the 6 year age difference with Claire.

Claire shines brightly on her birthday.  She is a bit shy at first but then happily enjoys the attention while still making sure everyone else is having a good time.  She is happy to do most anything on her special day and she was happy from morning until night.  She is sweet, loving and loves candy!