A Birthday Party for Addison

Addison turned five on the first of December! Every time I think about it I'm still surprised. How'd he get so big so quickly? How did we go from the baby that totally turned our lives upside down to a big helper who is ready to start kindergarten? No idea, frankly, but here we are. 

He really, really wanted a birthday party with friends this year. I am not the most creative or energetic mother in the world, and secretly hoped that he might forget or change his mind, but he asked consistently (and politely) over several months, so with lots of pep talks from Nate and several friends who excel at such things, I decided we'd do it. He chose an "ocean" theme. I scoured the internet looking for fun, cheap, easy, and Addison-appropriate ideas and felt my eyes bulge out a little farther with each cutesie, 12-course-fish-themed-food-with-laminated-labels party I saw. Luckily, I finally happened upon one that looked like a great time, was very homemade and nothing fancy, and emphasized that the preparation was the best part, because it gave the parents a chance to spend quality time with their little one working on it. And I realized that most of Addison's friends can't read yet, so labels on the food would have been a ridiculous waste. And five-year-olds don't care how clean my house is. Ha.

So we adopted that philosophy and went with it and it was so much fun to put together with Nate and the kids. And I think it really made Addison feel special, and super excited, to spend all that time working on it.

Here's what we ended up with.

Invitations:

Using my handy little digital scrapbooking program, Addison took great pleasure in choosing ocean-themed clipart to frame our cheesy and shamelessly stolen text. On the front it said "splish splash it's a birthday bash." And on the inside it said something to the effect of, "you are o-fish-ially invited to come and "sea" Addison turn 5!" Cheeseball to the max, but Addison loved it. He and Bryn still walk around saying "splish splash it's a birthday bash." I am the coolest mom ever.

We rolled them up, and stuck them in empty water bottles with a few sea shells, and then Addison wrote his friends' names on the outside with a Sharpie marker and we delivered them. TWO WEEKS EARLY. Party planner of the year, right here.

Decor: 

Balloons (Nate's job) and crepe paper strung from the ceiling fan in the family room.

Fish, starfish, and clams. I cut one of each from cardboard and let Addison and Bryn trace and cut them out from construction paper. Then we decorated them together. And they were in charge of taping them up around the family room, which ended up being all in one little group on the wall here. Super cute, super easy, the kids loved it.

Jellyfish. Addison picked out two oceany-looking colors of paint at the store, and then he and I painted paper bowls with different designs and taped crepe paper underneath for the legs. We had the best time, and it was all done in an afternoon.We hung them from the ceiling fans downstairs.

Activities: 

(Side note) I asked Nate be the master of ceremonies, and he did such a good job. That relieved a huge amount of stress for me and I got to just sit back and watch Addison and his buddies have fun.

Pin the pincher on the crab. Mucho creativo. Mucho artistico. Mucho quicko to get ready.  Made of posterboard, Elmer's glue, and love. I just had a little sandwich bag stapled to the board with a pincher that had each kid's name on it. A big hit.

Fishing for five. I printed out a bunch of ocean animals and made a fishing pole with a piece of yarn, clothespin, and a stick. On the back of each of the fish was something the kid who caught it had to do relating to the number five. A la, play five notes on the piano, eat five crackers, find five red Christmas ornaments. It was fun to watch. Especially the one that said "do five ninja moves." For the last one Addison got to give them each a sheet of five sparkly ocean stickers.

"Socktopus" toss. We made these beauts out of socks, stuffing, hair elastics, and googly eyes hot-glued on. Addison enjoyed picking out the socks at the store. I adore them. We were going to cut holes in a piece of cardboard for the kids to throw them through, but a friend of mine lent us a fancy mesh pop-up thing (think ski-ball and you're almost there) and saved us the trouble. I think this was the favorite game, and the socktopi doubled as party favors. And again, Addison and Bryn made them with me.

Nate was in charge of the treasure hunt and knocked it out of the park. A pirate had stolen some treasure and they had to find it.They were upstairs, downstairs, in bathrooms, outside, all in Addison's bed at the same time, in the chicken coop, it was great. 

And they finally found the treasure hiding in the vacuum closet. Octopops. Made of tootsie pops (leftover from Halloween), pipe cleaners, and googly eyes.

After that, we did cake and presents and that was it.

Fish cupcakes. The tails are construction paper taped on toothpicks.

In closing, I would like to say that almost every single idea we used was stolen from some creative person or other on the internet. Pinterest is great. I would also like to say, that the kids and I had an absolute ball putting this all together. The prep time we spent together was like a little present to me. And despite the simplicity of it all and my own ineptitude at things of this nature, I think everyone there had an blast.