Ryan's Under-the-Sea Birthday Party!

For Ryan's first birthday, we thought it would be fun to have an under-the-sea theme! We invited mainly friends from church (and small group), so there were lots and lots of big and little kids running around. :) What a fun way to celebrate Ryan's birthday!

You may have seen in another post that we decided to make fish cupcakes and an ocean cake. Both were a lot of fun to make! We used M&Ms for the fins, eyes, and lips and orange slices for the tail.

For the ocean cake, we used colored Swedish fish for the fish (as well as cut-up Swedish fish to make starfish). The ocean grass/sea weed was made from green Twizzler Pull 'n' Peels and green Fruit Roll Ups. The pebbles at the bottom were praline ice cream topping. We just used icing from the can, colored it blue with food coloring gel, and used a fancy icing spreader to add "waves" to the water.

We displayed the cake and cupcakes together on our kitchen table.

We chose to decorate with blue and green. Ian helped Momma make jellyfish out of paper bowls and ribbon. Ian's job was to paint the tops of the paper bowls with water colors. They turned out super cute, and the directions are very easy! There's one jellyfish hanging from the light fixture in the picture below, but we had about 12 hanging up throughout the kitchen and on the garage door, too. We also made some "bubbles" for the window. Grammy cut lots of circles with Kim's circle cutter, and Kim used tape runner to stick them to a piece of thread. They turned out so cute that we still have them hanging on our windows. :)

 While we were at Hobby Lobby shopping for ribbon to make the jellyfish, Ian found some fun shiny tulle-type material. It turned out to be perfect to use as decorations on the food tables and to decorate Ryan's high chair.

Kim also had fun printing pictures of Ryan's first year and hanging them in the shape of a 1 (posterboard underneath). It's so amazing how much babies grow up in the first year, isn't it?

It was a beautiful evening, so we had most of Ryan's party outside. We set up a table along our driveway with the favor bags. (Inside we had fish pop-up books, Goldfish crackers, fish-shaped water squirters, hand-held water/ring-toss game, and mini beach balls) On the table, we also had an ocean-themed book for the guests to sign. I saw this idea on someone's blog (to have a party-theme-related-book for guests to sign at each birthday party), and I thought it would be such a fun keepsake for Ryan!

The guests started arriving to the party around 4:30. Even though it was a party for a one-year-old, we figured we'd better have some activities planned to keep the older siblings happily occupied. :)

We had a few "stations" set up in the driveway and backyard. The birthday boy's favorite was the water table station. We had ocean-themed bath toys floating in some water. Ryan LOVED splashing in the water!! Thanks, Grammy, for retrieving all of the bath toys Ryan threw into the bushes. :)

Ryan enjoyed walking with Grammy between all of the other stations, too.

 

We had a station where kids could color a ocean-themed picture that fit inside a straw cup (and could be seen through the clear outer shell of the cup). We found the cups on orientaltrading.com.

At another station, kids could blow bubbles or make imprints of shells in play-doh.

 

At the final station, kids could scratch designs onto these cool black fish (again found on Oriental Trading). 

After giving the kids some time at the stations, we gathered everyone together for some group games. The first game was a fishing game. We attached a string and magnet to a croquet mallet pole to make a fishing pole. Grammy cut out lots of fish and put paperclips on each one. Then, Grammy wrote an action (like "swim like a fish," "walk like a crab," "clap like a sea lion") on each one. Each child got to go fishing at least once, and then everyone had to do the action that was on the fish. The kids seemed to enjoy doing all of the silly actions.

Then, we attempted to play Fish, Fish, Shark (Duck, Duck, Goose). This was HILARIOUS! Only the 6-year-old playing the game seemed to understand what was going on. Everyone else would run around wildly when they heard the word "shark." Needless to say, after attempting to re-explain the directions a few times, we just moved onto a different game pretty quickly.

By far, the most fun game was a slightly modified version of "Mr. Bear, Are you Sleeping?" One person (the "shark") stood on the other side of the yard with his /her back toward the other kids. The kids (all holding hands) would take steps forward together, saying louder and louder, "Mr. Shark, are you awake?" Finally, when the kids were very close to the "shark," the "shark" would turn around, growl, and try to tag someone else to become the "shark." The kids thought this was the best game ever, and, even on the 10th time of playing it, they'd shriek excitedly when the "shark" started his/her chase.

 

We also meant to do the Fish Hokey Pokey (put your left fin in, your right gill out, your fishy lips in, your tail fin out, etc.) but completely forgot before moving in to the hand-washing and eating phase.

For dinner, we served sandwiches (tuna salad, egg salad, chicken salad),pasta salad, veggies with hummus dip,

fruit,

some salty snacks,

jello aquariums,

and "ocean water" (blue punch).

We also had a "Goldfish Bar," including various types of Goldfish crackers and some foreign (Swedish) goldfish.

 (Uncle Jon, do you remember that fish lamp that used to be yours? Thanks for delivering it to us, Grandpa and Grandma! It added some ambience!)

After dinner, we sang to Ryan and gave him a cupcake. He eagerly grabbed some cupcake, put it in his mouth, made a sour face, and spit it all out. He didn't eat any more cupcake after that and just smeared a little green icing in his hair. I have a feeling someday he'll laugh about NOT liking sweets when he was 1. :) (Thanks, Martha, for capturing the progression on camera!)

What a fun party! Thanks, Mom, for ALL of your help to make the party a success.

Thank you, dear friends, for loving our little Ryan and for helping to make his birthday so special. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for creating Ryan and for entrusting him to our care. We are so blessed by the loving, easygoing, sweet little boy You've made him to be! We can't wait to stand alongside and watch how You will use Ryan in a powerful way for You!

 Happy birthday, little one! We love you SO much!