For birthdays, the policy at our house is that the kids can have a birthday party with their friends every other year. This was the rule in my house growing up and now that I am a mother, I can fully appreciate it! Kid birthday parties are a lot of fun, but they can be a lot of WORK too! (That being said, I have no idea how I am going to implement this with the quints yet, since there are five of them....maybe the girls get to have a party one year and the boys the next---when I made this policy, I would never have imagined having quintuplets!) This was Kaiya's year for a friend birthday party. Within about a month of her last birthday party (nearly two years ago) Kaiya decided that for her 8th birthday, she wanted to have a Hawaiian themed birthday party. I thought for sure she would change her mind in the two years she had to wait for the next party, but she stuck to it! That was fine with me, because I could think of lots of fun things to do with the "Hawaii" theme!
Party Invitation
When all the "passengers" arrived at the party, they boarded the "plane" for Flight 306 service to Honolulu, Hawaii.
All aboard Flight 306--10 very excited, very active, very LOUD girls get ready for take-off!
Once the "plane" had reached its cruising altitude, the passengers were served beverages and snacks.
Snack packs filled with macadamia nuts
The handsome flight attendant (aka Riley) serves drinks to the passengers
The flight attendant collected all trash and remaining service items as the passengers returned their seats and tray tables to their upright and locked positions in preparation for landing.
After the girls "landed", they were greeted with shell leis (which I picked up when I was in Kona in January). Then they completed two different craft projects. First they made some fancy flip-flops and then they put together their own candy lei.
Working on the flip-flops
Fancy Flip-Flops--The finished product!
Making candy leis
Riley models his lei (he didn't think it was manly to curl the ribbons like the girls did)
Next the girls learned a hula dance. I used to live in Hawaii when I was a kid, so I taught them how to do the hula to "Pearly Shells". Jayson took several pictures, but they must be on my other computer, so I will have to add them later :-)
After the hula, the girls played a game called "Boolah, Boolah", which we renamed "Hula, Hula" to go with the Hawaii theme. I remember playing this game at every birthday party I had as a kid, but I think it might be a game that my mom made up, because I have never met anyone else who knows what it is. It is basically a hot/cold game. Someone leaves the room and somebody else hides a prize. When the person comes back into the room, every one sings "boolah, boolah" over and over singing loudly when the person is near the prize and softly when they are far from the prize until the person finds it. The prizes for the game were these cute flower hair bows. I looked at the store for a more tropical flower to make the bows out of, but had to settle for these :-)
The game prizes: Fun Flower Hair bows
Goodie Bags for the girls to take home their loot
The evening ended with dinner! On the menu, Hawaiian Haystacks (which is rice, chicken gravy and toppings which included cheese, crunchy noodles, coconut, pineapple, and macadamia nuts), pineapple and cantaloupe skewers, and Hawaiian sweet rolls. To drink: tropical smoothies (with little umbrellas of course).
The serving table
The party girls enjoying their feast!
If after reading this post, you are thinking to yourself "Wow, she sure planned a lot of stuff for two hours!" You would be 100% correct! The girls barely started eating dinner five minutes before parent started arriving to pick up their daughters! We quickly sang "Happy Birthday" to Kaiya and sent everyone home with a cupcake.
Kaiya with her cake. The shape of the base of the cake is supposed to be an "8" for Kaiya's 8th birthday (it was pretty subtle, I don't think anyone caught on to that). The volcano was made by shaping rice krispie treats around the outside of an 8 oz water bottle. I filled the bottle with Cheerios so that the candles would say put and hopefully make it look like the volcano was exploding. The lava rocks near the base of the volcano are mini and regular sized chocolate chips. The "sand" on the beach is brown sugar. I picked up the hula dancer in Hawaii. The rest is frosting....lots and lots of frosting!
Make a wish!
On Kaiya's actual birthday, we celebrated with a small "family" party. We had GG and Ronnie and the Woods family over for dinner and birthday treat.
Kaiya opening her presents. Ryder was upset that he didn't get to open any.
The whole "family" at Kaiya's family party
I love planning parties, and Kaiya's party was a huge success, but I am glad I don't have to do another one for her for a couple more years! Now time to plan Riley's birthday party...
Posts
16 comments:
Rachelle you are so creative! I never put that much work or effort into my kids birthday parties which is probably why I don't mind throwing them every year. Although last year Alec and Cora had 8 birthday parties combined. Ridiculous. I will never do that again!
That looks like a super FUN birthday party!! Kaiya's hair is getting so long-pretty!
That cake looks amazing!
I read this post with my daughter who is having a birthday party in two weeks. Guess who now wants a Volcano cake? Her! It looks like your party was a huge success. Thanks for sharing the details and photos.
Happy Birthday Kaiya! Eight is one of the best birthday I think.
Wow, You are amazingly creative. I love the invitation. Having them pretend to fly is an awesome idea. That cake looks so yummy! She looks like she had so much fun. Thanks so much for sharing.
What an awesome birthday party!! It must be a girl thing as I had an Hawaiian party for my 12th birthday (long time ago). Looks like the kids had loads of fun. I really love the Hawaiian Airline idea and the cool plane tickets as invites. Very creative!!! You should publish a book with all these amazing ideas!!
Happy Birthday Kaiya, 8 is such a special birthday and you are a special girl and big sister.
Rachelle, simply put, YOU AMAZE ME! What a fun party, I would love one as well planned.
It's always lovely to see pictures of GG and the Woods family, I consider them friends.
Your kiddos are growing and all so cute. Love you all.
So where were the little ones while all this fun was going on?
Oh and you say you do parties every 2nd year -- what year do you start doing parties? age 4?
SO COOL! i am going to have to remember this idea for my little girl. We do parties every other year as well and next year is her year. She just turned 8 in january this year, i didn't realize she was so close to your daughter. Do you have baptism pictures too?
I know you have no idea who I am but I feel like I know you. You are actually in my friends stake. Not sure if you know Stephanie and Ken Tietjen.
So you don't know me...but I was reading your post today and just about fell off my chair when I read that you played Boolah Boolah growing up. Our family played boolah boolah and we were pretty sure my parents made up the game as well. I've never heard of one person that has even heard of that game before. I had to email my family and tell them we aren't the only ones that know about boolah boolah. Do you sing it to It's a Small World? That is what we sing it to. Anyways, thought you would want to know of another boolah boolah family out there.
I LOVE her party theme! When I had my daughter Madeline, her baby nursery was Hawaiian themed and my baby shower was also Hawaiian themed. I may have to steal your ideas to do for my daughter's 8th birthday the end of this year. Such cute pictures! You're so creative!
Schreffler Family: Riley actually had parties at ages 3, 4 and 5---that was when I started to appreciate my mom's every other year rule and he had the next two at 7 and 9 (and then this year for 11). Kaiya's first birthday party was at age 4, by then the rule was in place so she has had them at 4, 6, and 8. BTW, the quints were at GG's house during Kaiya's party.
Jamie--no baptism pictures yet---she actually isn't going to be baptized until May---that was the first time we could get everyone's schedules to align.
Sheri--WOW! I am amazed to find another "boolah, boolah" friend! The tune we use is just some repeating tune---I don't think it is anything familiar. After I posted, my grandma emailed me and said that my mom got the game from her, but she didn't remember where she got it from.
Your ideas for the party were excellent and so cute for a little girl's 8th birthday celebration! Happy birthday to Kaiya!
what a fun idea for a party! love everyone sitting in the airplane seats;)
Post a Comment