Henry is Turning Three! Come Party With Us Under the Sea!

Henry has been talking about his birthday for the last 6 months. The thing about this little guy is that he really knows what he wants, always has in fact. And so it was no surprise when we were talking about his train party he said, "mmm, I want a sea creature party." And so it was. Here is a recap of the day...

We "O'fish' ally" invited all of his little friends to his party with a little plastic fish swimming in soap. He was so excited to deliver these invitations to his friends and has been working hard at each and every bath to get that little fishy out of the soap.

The cake: He really wanted an orange clown fish cake. " ...because orange is my favorite color" is something we hear a lot at our house. I couldn't find any great ideas for a clown fish cake so began trying to convince him that an octopus cake would be really exciting. He wouldn't be persuaded and so I found this cake online (it was very cute as a blue rainbow fish) but I adapted it for my orange loving son. It would have to do. The fish cupcakes from Family Fun added a nice touch. I think he was ultimately happy with it and that is what matters most.








The Decorations: Ocean creatures and crepe paper hung from the ceiling. A fishing net with plastic sea creatures.

The Party: We had 5 little neighborhood friends over for his party. It was exciting to say the least. We started off with sponge painting using sea creature sponges from the dollar store. When their pictures dried we laminated them and used them as place mats for ice cream and cake.
We played Feed the Shark Bean Bag Toss. The shark was Chris's master piece. I put him in charge of this one and he did an amazing job designing it from a cardboard box. The kids loved it! Not only could this shark eat bean bags, it could swim too. Pretty exciting.

Next we played Dive Into the Ocean. The kids took turns diving under the blue plastic tarp to find an ocean creature. When they surfaced they had to tell us what they had caught.

We then watched a short video clip of jellyfish then pretended to be jellyfish ourselves. We played Octopus's Garden by the Beatles while all the kids danced, marched and ran around like jellies. Henry has some serious jellyfish moves, I wish I had it on video.



Then it was out to the backyard for a little free time. I had three different stations set up.

Digging for sea shells.

Deep Sea Fishing.




And Giant Bubbles.




Present time was quick and dirty. A few of the kids opened the present they brought for Henry themselves. So hilarious.

And everyone's favorite time, cake and ice cream in their octopus party hats.


The shark even made a surprise appearance. He must have smelled cupcakes.



It was a wild hour and a half. I think they all had a good time. Thanks to Chris, and both Grandmas for helping out, couldn't have handled six 3-year-olds without you.

A few presents with the family, including that big red barn he had been asking for.

After nap it was off to the aquarium.



Back home for dinner. Sea Shell Mac and Cheese and Octopus Hotdogs. Total hit!

Cake and Home-made Ice cream.


And a round of baseball with his new automatic pitching baseball tee. Happy Birthday Henny We love you.