Birthday Party Ideas: A Mermaid Party

My oldest turned four this month and we decided to have a mermaid party. It was quite a process to come to this decision, actually. After requests such as "A dolphin giraffe party!" and "koala party!" we finally settled with our "under the sea" theme. Here's some of the ideas we pulled together:

I had some sheer blue fabric that we placed over the invites to make them look like they're under water.

I made Hazel this no-sew mermaid skirt that I found here. She loved loved loved it, but it kept falling off and one of the little boys at the party kept stepping on her tail. Beauty is pain.

My mom and I frosted this under-water beauty all morning.
I found the idea on good ole Family Fun, here.
My daughter cut out the pink starfish that were scattered on the table.

Remember Squeeze-its? I loved those. These were called something else, but were the perfect shade of aqua blue.

Starfish brownie pops, also inspired by Living Locurto.
(Eventually they all got faces...)

We used our fish bean-bag toss from a fish-themed party we did two years ago. My mom sewed bean bags out of the cutest fabric. They're peeking out from under the octopus in the next picture...

We did a bean bag toss and played "hot octopus" (hot potato) but the kids got a prize once they were ousted to keep spirits high.


For our last game, we had an "under the sea" scavenger hunt where the clues were inside "bubbles" (balloons) they had to pop. The clues eventually led to a box full of treasure for everyone...

The girls got bracelets and necklaces and there were little sea creatures for the boys.
*I have to admit that this was the low part of the party for me. I wrote down the order of clues on a piece of paper that I accidentally let my 6 month old chew on while I stuffed the clues permanently inside of the balloons. When I asked my husband to hide the balloons and he asked, "Where do they go?" I drew a blank. The chewed-up paper with my hiding spots had been thrown away. I figured I could correct my mistake as we went along, but Hazel was crying because everyone kept stepping on her tail and I didn't realize one of our little guests was old enough to read and she got to the clues before I did--which led her to the wrong places. Let's just say that I finally sent them all outside to the last balloon and had my brother bring out the treasure box to end the whole thing. Some things work out better in my head than in reality...

To top it off, we had a starfish pinata that was finally beat to bits by my fourteen year old brother! All in all, it was a FUN mermaid party and we were so glad to be done...

And all of this was made possible by....my hot mama. Isn't she gorgeous? Seriously, who else could send you back to your closet with an order to put on something more comfy and cool because she knows you'll start to sweat once the kids start spilling their juice on your floor and one of them sneaks into your guest bedroom and jumps on your nice white quilt with dirty feet?
A girl needs her mom. Even when she's all grown up.

Doesn't that look like a happy birthday girl?
After all the guests were gone, we brought up Hazel's present...chickens!
Yep, we have three hardy winter-laying chickens--one for each girl. There's Diego, named after my 2 year old's first love, and Elvis, after Ellie's thick dark hair. And Hazel named her's Rapunzel. We thought that was fitting since she got the hair to match it (from the sweet boy who kept stepping on her mermaid tail).