Emily is 5

Emily decided she wanted a birthday party with a summer/beach theme.  A bit unique for January, but ok.  We'll see what we can do.

First, the invitations: message in a bottle with seashells and paper flowers tucked in 'for added beauty' (as Emily says...)  We invited 9 girls from Emily's school class.  All of them came.

Em was a big help getting the decorations ready.  She painted the 'Aloha' sign, a palm tree and a big sunshine.

Matt found this cute woven tray at an antique store a couple weeks ago.  It worked perfectly for holding the flower hair clips I made for each of the guests.  The candles were a great deal - FREE - at a local shop called Re-Store (they warehouse everything the big stores don't sell).  Don't worry, those are child-friendly battery-operated tea lights inside!

Remember the pillow case decorating we did last summer at Amy's party?  Well, it went over so well that I decided to re-use the fabric markers - this time on beach towels (to fit the theme).   I appliqued each of the guest's names onto their towel and set out a bunch of sealife/beach stencils and let them decorate.

 

 One thing I love about little girls is how they take their artwork seriously.  It was almost silent during this activity because they were all so focused on stenciling pretty things onto their towels. 

We had one other craft too - making leis.  This was done by threading foam flowers onto yarn (I hole-punched the centers) and using bits of cut up plastic straws as dividers.

See my helper?  She's one of the young women from church.  Since Matt is away in Nashville this month, I had her come along to help me out.  I'm sure glad that I did! 

It wasn't all craft time at this party, we had a few games too.  Amy wanted to be in charge of this part and she did a great job.  There was the coconut toss (Amy hand-stitched coconut beanbags out of brown felt and filled them with dried beans).And the all-time favourite event - the fish pond:  

In preparation for our upcoming move, I'd been sorting through cupboards, closets and drawers and managed to come up with quite a collection of little treasures.  Stickers, toy rings, stick-on earrings, bubbles, bath toys, activity books, etc.  These all went as prizes in the fish pond. 

Then, some food: Hawaiin pizza, fruit skewers, party popcorn, potato sticks and fruit juice - on a nice, comfy beach blanket.

Then some birthday cake.  This tropical island cake was the easiest cake I've ever made - regular 9x13 pan cake with blue frosting for the sea and crushed up shortbread cookies for the sand.  A few palm trees and a bath toy sea turtle and there it is, all done.

Per English tradition, we sent cake home with each of the guests.  I made little island cupcakes for the little girls to take home with them.

Oh, and lets not forget the presents.

P.S. Now that Emily is 5, she has joined the village Rainbows group.  Rainbows is the precursor to the Brownies and Girl Guides program.  It is for girls ages 5-7. 

Emily really enjoys doing activities with the other girls and is anxious to earn her first badge.