You say it's your Birthday!?!?!?

 AJ had a birthday! (Cue: “Birthday”, by The Beatles) He got donuts and Grammy & Papa’s birthday present for breakfast. M and I were the Career Week special guests for the kindergarten that day to make his b-day even more exciting!

 

I tried something new for the birthday decorations this time. He picked the ocean for his party theme this year.  I wanted it to look like we were under the sea, (Cue: “Octopus’s Garden”, by the Beatles) so I painted an underwater scene on our dinning room window! It was so much fun! Painting on glass was new to me, obviously there is NO absorption of the paint into the glass, and it is permanently vertical, (no letting it dry flat and then hanging it up later), so there were LOADS of drips going everywhere, but easy to clean up. Like I said, SO fun!

We had 6 of his friends over for the Ocean party. First game was “draw the teeth on the shark” for a little different spin on the old pin the tail on the donkey. I drew a toothless shark on some light blue wrapping paper taped on the wall. It was easily as fun as the original. After everyone had their turn we had them draw more sea creatures and submarines on the paper mural.

Next we did a relay race down in the basement...under the sea.

We had cleared all the furniture to the walls in the family room, and they had to take a water ring from one end of the room, switch it with another ring, and then bring it back to their team while wearing adult sized flippers. As you can imagine, it was hilarious.

I had thought about having each kid make their own cool glittery water ring for the relay and as a craft project/party favor during the party. This blog post made them look so nifty and easy, but when we tried them earlier in the week?!?! Good Grief!! They were seriously messy and time consuming. We started over so many times, I’m sure we win for having THE most glitter filled septic tank in all of North America; maybe the world. Even on the best of the rings, the seal still leaked a little oil, so they were okay for the game, but there was no way I was going to send them home as favors.

Another clear game choice for an ocean party was crab soccer with a beach ball.  I might never get over how competitive some people are; they loved it.

I also thought it would be cool for the kids to make their own kinetic sand like this stuff that we love. There were lots of blogs with recipes for that too. We tried a couple different approaches and ended up with something more like “Moon Sand” (crumblier and doesn't move in the cool way we love about the Brookstone stuff), but again, too messy to have 6 year olds make or to send home as party favors. (Cue: "Ob La Di Ob La Da", by The Beatles…la la la life goes on.)

We DID use the quasi-moon sand for a sunken treasure hunt. I used sparkly nail polish to paint colors on the insides of just a few sea shells that we hid in a big tray of the sand and other shells. The kids took turns digging around for colored shells and then redeeming them for prizes that were determined by the color of shell they had found.

After all the prize shells were found, we divvied up the moon sand into a couple more trays, and the boys dug, sculpted, and played for quite a while. M had to leave the party at this point because it was messier than he could stand, it's not like I let them add water, so I didn’t see what the big deal was; just sand over every inch of the kitchen/dinning room. Gee. ;)

Then it was cake and gifts time. For the invites I drew and AJ colored a submarine with a squid clinging to it. (Cue: “Yellow Submarine”, by The Beatles) 

It occurred to me that Twinkies could look like little yellow submarines and when I found gummy octopi, it was obvious what had to be done. We had a fleet of yellow submarines in a sea of blue jello jigglers! We also had cookies stuck together with frosting that looked like clam shells with giant pearl gumballs in them.

One of the little kiddlywinks at the party declared that it was “THE BEST PARTY EVER!” about a dozen times. We are definitely inviting that kid back soon...and anyone else who never gets tired of The Beatles.