Luau/Surfer Party

It's hard for me to believe that this kid is six. The first time we took a picture with the jersey, it was  a couple of days after Garrett was born and he was about as big as the numbers on the front. Now it just looks like my kid likes to wear sports themed muumuus. 

Troy worked a half day because he'd already logged a ridiculous amount of hours working on VBS so when he got home, we headed to the pool for a little over an hour. When we got back, we had the boys rest for a little while and we worked hard to get the house and yard ready for his party. Once they woke up we let Garrett open his presents from his grandparents, aunts and uncles and us. 

Earlier in the year, Garrett gave a model plane to a a kid at our church for his birthday. Since then, he's been begging for one of his own. When he opened this gift from my aunt and uncle, he declared, "Yes! This is MY model plane!" It's already been built and is sitting on a shelf in his room.

He was thrilled to add Legos to his collection. He got art stuff, money for surf camp next summer (oh yes, more on that later), and many other things.

Pretty soon, it was time for his party.

Unfortunately, I never got a picture of this table with the cake on it. The gift bags had the prizes for the winners of the games. That coconut came from Hawaii and was used in one of the games. The ukulele also hails from the island of Maui.

I got everything at Dollar Tree or in the dollar section at Target. The table setting included bamboo place mats, tiki themed plates, and palm tree cups. The centerpieces were funky tropical hats and a pineapple. I served all the food in bright colored serving dishes from Dollar Tree.

The menu was simple. Potato chips, pineapple and strawberry kabobs, and roasted pig. Okay. So, actually, Garrett asked if we could roast a pig and I told him we could certainly grill chicken and pork hot dogs. The kids all had a fizzy pineapple punch made with pineapple juice, Sprite and raspberry sherbet.  

I made place settings with a clip art image that I found. Each kid received a flower lei and they got to take home their palm tree cup. While we were in Maui we bought 12 key chains for 10 dollars and each child got to take home a key chain as well.

When the kids got to the party they played for awhile. This included most of them jumping in to our kiddie pool in all their clothing. I totally thought they'd maybe get their feet wet if they were hot. That's why I left the water in it. I was thinking like a 30-year-old woman, not a six-year-old boy. 

Once everyone arrived, we had dinner and then we played games. Our games were traditional party games with Hawaiian twists. The prizes were ocean themed: sand toys, fish shaped side walk chalk, and a sea star that grows to, like, 50 times it's size when you put it in water. The first up was a raging game of Hot Coconut complete with Hawaiian music.

The second game was Pin the Surfer on the Wave. Troy bought a sea themed window panel from a party store. We cut it into pieces and one of the pieces was used as a table cloth on the cake table. The other piece was hung on the wall. Troy drew a wave on and the outline of our little surfer. We printed out a shot of Garrett surfing and each kid had their own little Surfer Dude.

So many of them ended up several feet away from the actual board so we tried to steer them a little closer. In the end, Garrett was surfing all over the place. We took this picture after the party and several of the surfers had been rearranged. No one got it spot on but a few were very close.

Our last game was a traditional balloon toss. It took us forever to explain what we wanted them to do. However, once we started, they decided it was a hit.

I'm going to have to write an entire post just about this cake because, boy howdy, was it ever a labor of love. The surfboards and shark fins are made out of fondant. The towels are strips of fruit snacks. The sand is a graham cracker and brown sugar mixture. This particular cake is the third attempt. By that I mean, two boxes of cake mix failed before this one was accomplished. I'll let you wonder about that for awhile. Keep checking back and you might see a post about the tale of three cakes.

After we had cake and ice cream, Garrett got to open some great presents. Most of the kids stayed and played for a little while before heading home.

 At 7:30 PST (or 8:30 in our time zone) Troy snapped this shot of me with my exactly six-year-old.

And I snapped this one of my favorite husband and my favorite oldest boy.

I'd made the mistake of looking on Pinterest for luau ideas and realizing that I am basically a colossal failure when it comes to creativity. But even if it wasn't exactly a Martha Stewart party, I think it turned out pretty well. And my birthday boy had fun--which is what really matters.