On Sunday the 12th, we had Jocelyn's birthday party at the Pearland Natatorium. She said she wanted an Ariel birthday party and we were fortunate enough to have an indoor pool so that my January baby could have a pool party. The weather turned out to be really nice and warm that day so an outdoor pool party might not have been completely out of the question but why take the risk and with the prior cold weather, the pool water would have been really cold.
So, with a place in mind and a theme - I got to planning. We weren't going to have a lot of time to set up and decorate, but I wanted to do some home-made decorations anyways. Why? Because it is fun and a creative outlet for me. I couldn't put anything on the walls of the room, so I did a backdrop using a blue cardboard tri-fold and painted on it to look like water and glued green foam cut like seaweed. Then I glued a little burlap banner on it that said "Happy Birthday Jocelyn" - in retrospect, I should have made the paint darker to be able to see the letters better.
The food was a lot of fun too - I wanted to keep it simple since i was bringing it all with me from home (no cooking on site and I wasn't going to pay for catering), so we did sandwiches, chips, fruit and jello. The jello was put into baby food plastic containers and a swedish fish candy was put in the middle to look like a little aquarium (I will note that the swedish fish turn slimy and a little gross after being in jello for a while). Plus the sweets - cake pops, rice krispie treats shaped like fish, cookie sandwiches to look like oysters with a pearl inside, plus the cake. The cake was made by Fairy Bakery in Pearland and they did a fabulous job. I gave them the figurines to use and let the baker use her creativity to do the rest (with a bit of guidance from me - 2 tier, with a water/ocean theme).
The table decorations were done using baby formula cans, wrapped in green foam shaped like seaweed. I also used foam stickers for fish and other sea creatures, plus some glittery pink, purple, and blue twig items for sparkle. The middle part was supposed to look like Ariel in a bubble and i added the plastic spoons as a throw back to the movie. I put the centerpieces on a runner made of burlap and purple mesh ribbon, plus I added a couple of white Ikea frames with print outs wishing Jocelyn a Happy Birthday! These were fun to do and very easy.
Jocelyn had a blast swimming with her friends. She was thrilled that her friend Avery from school could come - that's her best friend and the two had so much fun and were inseparable! I think the kids and parents had fun swimming too! After swimming, we ate, opened presents and had cake. I probably should have left more time for food/cake/presents than 30 minutes - but the kids were having so much fun swimming it was hard to get them out of the pool. We had the room/pool access for 2 hours and it was enough time for a really fun party without being too long.
