Merfolk

This past weekend we wrote out thank you cards for some presents Julius and Patricia got for their birthdays.  I told Julius we were going to write thank you cards and he immediately started writing.  I was slightly concerned.  We had a conversation that went something like this:

Lexi: Wait, Julius, you don’t even know who you are writing your thank you note to!

Julius: I am writing it to Kylie.

Lexi: But you don’t know what she got you.

Julius: Yes I do!  She got me a shark book and a squishmallow.

That’s about when I left him to it!  He has such an incredible memory…

So I’m going to talk about Patricia’s party this week, but first, one quick adorable story about Patricia.  Patricia’s party was the day after her actual birthday.  So for her real birthday I bought a tiny cake.  We didn’t do anything super exciting for her actual birthday, but we did have her blow out candles on the cake after dinner.  Immediately after she blew out the candles she was super confused.  She looked up at me with uncertainty and said, “nobody came to my birthday party!”  My heart broke!  Luckily she cheered right up when we told her the party was tomorrow…

Patricia’s Mermaid Party

Theme

Obviously the theme was mermaids.  She originally had said she wanted an “octopus party” but later confessed she would rather have a mermaid party.  That’s fine!  Who doesn’t love a mermaid party?  You may remember I threw her a mermaid party for her first birthday as well.  And we were mermaids for Halloween… so who doesn’t want to be a mermaid in this family!?

Activities

From Julius’ party happenings, I was worried about having enough activities since at Julius’s party the time it took to do activities varied wildly.  We had a similar situation happen this time, but we sort of let the kids do whatever they wanted since the little kiddos were being attended by parents.

Mermaid Crowns

We put out mermaid crowns on our coffee table and a little craft table in the living room and I put a variety of ocean themed stickers around the tables to add to the crown.  Kids spent a varied amount of time on the crowns, but most of them spent quite a while putting stickers on.

Shell Necklaces

I put necklace kits in a little treasure chest that I’d hidden in plain sight on the coffee table.  As kids started getting bored with the stickers I encouraged them to pick a necklace and work on it.  To make the kits I drilled large holes in assorted shells my mom had given us, and then put a shell in a bag with matching pony beads and a string that I’d tied one end of a break away clasp on.  The kids strung the beads in any way they desired and then a parent helped them tie the other half of the break away clasp on.  The beads and shells had large enough holes that made it easy for little hands to thread.

Mermaid Face Painting

While the children were working on their necklaces and crowns I painted faces using a hypoallergenic face paint kit I picked up after Halloween for half price and some stencils I made with the cricut.  I also did my own face paint because, let’s be honest, I am also a mermaid.  Surprisingly no other parents took me up on the offer to paint their face.

Bounce Castle

If those activities weren’t enough of a time killer I then invited the kids to bounce in a bouncy house we had set up in the garage.  (We got this bounce house from some friends of ours and it is amazing, we use it all the time!)

Mermaid Lantern

We actually ate lunch after the bounce castle, but after lunch we made some Mermaid Lanterns (or night lights).  Julius has been using his as a night light ever since, but Patricia was less inclined.  This was more sticker-ing which is a win for 3 year olds.

Under the Sea Room

After everyone finished their lanterns I invited the children to explore the under the sea room, which was filled with jelly fish (from recycled wrappers), balloon fish, and an octopus guarding some treasure.  The kids right away saw the octopus guarding the goody bags, so we rescued the bags and they opened them up to find mermaid blanket tails I’d made.

Mermaid Story Telling

The idea at this point was when the kids had their blankets we could sit and read a couple mermaid themed stories.  I took a few books out of the library (recommended by mermaid forums!)  The kids were great listeners, even though I was a bit blind in the dark room and stumbled over some of the words.

Food

For lunch Patricia also asked for mac and cheese.  I made only 1 crock pot full this time, and used shells instead of elbows (to be on theme).  We also made octopus hot dogs (Ka actually boiled them all for me!  Thanks Ka!) and pimento cheese and chicken salad croissant sandwiches with little eyes to look like crabs. For vegetables we had a salad, and carrots and celery sticks.  Oh and I can’t forget goldfish crackers of course!  Since I made everything except the hot dogs before the party it was pretty easy.  We threw the hot dogs in while the kids were bouncing.  Mercifully, more adults ate at this party vs. the last one.

Dessert

For dessert I made mermaid cupcakes.  They were vanilla tie dye cupcakes using this recipe with the same American buttercream recipe I used for Julius’ party.  (Side note: I’ve got to find a fluffier vanilla cupcake recipe.  Even when I weighed the flour this time they were super dense.  Great for a layer cake, not great for cupcakes.)  I made the tails for the cakes out of those white chocolate candy melts and I think they came out so cute!  Patricia was very excited/nervous listening to all these people sing Happy Birthday to her.  She was far happier than the previous day when “no one came” to her party.