Lea's birthday

We had Lea's 5th Birthday party at the end of July. I got a little carried away inviting people, but we're so lucky to be involved with some great people. We invited our long time friends like Anna & Molly, and the girls from our play-group that we've been with for a few years now and our new friends that Lea will start Kindergarten with in August. In all we had 14 kids! I was a little overwhelmed when 3 or 4 of the Kindergarten kids and parents all came at once, but it was so wonderful to see them all. I just let go and hoped the things I'd set up would entertain the kiddos and I think everyone had a wonderful time. I know I had a great day and Lea sure had fun.

Our theme was artistic mermaids.


The octopus that made its debut at Lea's 2nd birthday, welcomed guests.

The first Mermaid to arrive was Vivian in her Mermaid costume. Lea got a wonderful tail from Tina while we were on vacation so she was set for her Mermaid party.
Everything looked great.

Dan made waves on the ceiling with crepe paper and hung crepe paper outside like seaweed. Lea and Dan made "jellyfish" out of pudding cups and ribbon (from Family Fun magazine) that were beautiful!

I was pretty darn proud of the cake. Here is Lea with her cake.


I knew I wanted it to look like water with Ariel surrounded by a beach and sea. I knew I was going to put jello in the cake (jello poke cake like my mom used to make - yum!) with a jello ocean on top (which I'd seen in family circle and saw some great examples on the web). But how was I going to create an island paradise for Ariel and my little mermaid? A lady at work (Amy D.) saved my skin by bringing in an amazing cupcake book that said you could microwave starburst or taffy for 3 seconds and sculpt. Voila! I started with one lone strawberry crab.

There were pretzel palm trees with tootsie roll coconuts with sand made from graham cracker and brown sugar.


Marshmallow seagulls. (The cupcake book told me how to make those). Of the pretzel pylons, Lea said "That's where you dock a boat." I was shocked she knew that's what those were for!

A lobster, crab, starfish and some swedish fish in their blue jello ocean.

The final product.



The first activity as the kids came in was painting mermaid tails. I had visions of them wearing their tails around and playing tag, but we got carried away with fabric paint and it was just too hot to do too much outside. Everyone seemed to love making their tail and having it to take home. Here Kindergarten kids painting mermaid tails.

The painted mermaid tails drying in the sun. There were some beautiful creations!

We played a quick round of Pin the tail on the Mermaid. Aunt Teresa liked the game best.
Everyone else just wanted to SWIM!!!

But first we had cake.
The girls waiting patiently to cut the cake.
Then the kids got to swim.
Lea and some kindergarten friends are seeing how long they can hold their breath.

The chaos of swimming and our great life guard and jungle gym: Andrew.


Andrew with Lea in a noodle lock

Andrew was a trooper and got very worn out. He did the bulk of the life guarding and playing and Dan finished off with some feats of strength. Dan being a sea horse. But then he stood up with all the girls on him! He was a little sore the next day!

Lea and Molly climbing on Dan.

The mermaid queen and the birthday girl
Lea in front of her mural. I imagined all the kids painting and drawing on the mural, but with swimming and tails it was kind of an after thought. Teresa made this great little note of happy birthday and near the end Andrew got it really going with a gigantic Happy Birthday. While not everyone at the party got to enjoy the mural, we've left it up for two weeks and Lea has enjoyed drawing on it and sticking jewels. It's become quite the master piece.
Three girls stayed late after the party for some low key play time and snacks. The girls get a pretzel tree each.

Jenae stayed to play Barbies with some of Lea's new presents.

As everyone left they got a gift bags and our sand clay that we made from sand we collected at Myrtle Beach. It molds like play dough, but dries hard in a week or so. I found a recipe in a magazine on the way to Myrtle Beach so we collected bottles of sand for the clay. That's what's in the ziplock bags and then a toy & lollipop in the paper bags.

On Sunday we let Lea open her family presents. The biggest one first from Mommy & Daddy. Its a BIKE!! with training wheels.

"You can only ride in the house on your 5th birthday!" Later in the week Lea and Mommy did ride bikes down to the park and it was wonderful. Later in the week Mommy broke out her old pink bike and we rode down to the park. It wasn't too hot and we had a wonderful ride. Looking forward to many rides around the neighborhood.

A present from Grandma to her little chicken.

Grandma, Mommy, Lea and Daddy played one of the two games Lea got as a present. Balloon Lagoon is pretty fun with 4 different "carnival games" to earn balloons.
We had a wonderful birthday with Grandma, Mommy & Daddy on Sunday. Aside from wonderful gifts, we ate steak and went to the movies for Despicable Me in 3D. Everyone loved it. And of course we couldn't stop saying "It's so FLUFFY!" And speaking of fluff...

The big present Lea got from Grandma was princess sheets and comforter. She got a big girl single bed from Grandpa. So she was ready ready to Sleep like a 5 year old princess.

But all got kicked aside for good ol' blankie.
She's since started sleeping with the comforter nightly in such a fluffy bundle I can't see the girl for all the princess fluff! Being 5 is pretty awesome.