It's hard to believe that it's already been 4 years since Lizzie was born. I asked her on Saturday how she got to be four and she told me 'Because it's my birthday today.' Well yes child I do realize that, but how have four years already gone by??? Some days it might feel like it takes forever to make it through a day with her, but other days I just want to slow down and hold her just a little longer each time she lets me.
Lizzie has been debating party themes since we celebrated Taylor's birthday in April. My rule is that I need to get past one birthday before the next kid can even think about a party idea. Not to mention that I have six months to get ready for the next one. I finally took Lizzie to Party City and let her see all the options and pick one. Keep in mind that between the two girls we have had a Frozen, Strawberry Shortcake, Fairy, Hello Kitty, Minion, Bubble Guppies/Nemo, Princess, Ladybug, and Sesame Street themed parties. Lizzie decided to keep it fresh and chose Little Mermaid. She also wanted to do a sing-along style party similar to Taylor's so we decided to an Under the Sea Sing-Along. I have loved Little Mermaid since it came out the first time(I'm not going to mention how young I was) and Pinterest offered a full selection of ideas to plan with.
Lizzie really wanted to help with her party so I let her pick a lot of the design and decorations. I surprised her with a few but what fun would it be if there weren't a few surprises. Lizzie loved Ariel's sparkly tail in this picture so I found a way to use it for her invitation. Poor Flounder had to get covered up by a star so that I could get all the information on the invitation without covering up too much of that sparkly tail. 
Along with the paper invitation we included a CD with some of Lizzie's favorite songs. I did this for Taylor's Frozen party so I thought I had it figured out. Lesson learned when printed the CD inserts before trying to burn the CD. I was 17 seconds over what would truly fit on the CD so I had to carefully white out number 20. We love us some Kelly Clarkson, but she just didn't make the CD cut. We did play her video during the party. I am still trying to explain to Lizzie why Macklemore and Jason Derulo weren't the best songs to put on a CD for her friends.
Keeping with the Under the Sea theme, I made shell shaped tags for the goodie bags. Lizzie found small plastic slinkies with Ariel on them at the party store and declared them a must-have for her friends. We also included a sparkly bracelet and some Ariel stickers.
The girls are fascinated by my Silhouette and the things I can make with it. I saw this scrap piece of wood in the garage and just had to make a sign for the front door. I figured we can also use it in the backyard later or give it to my in-laws for near their pool. Since I already had the wood and vinyl, it was pretty inexpensive to get a can of purple spray paint. I'm surprised we didn't have some already but I'm sure I'll find a use for it again in the future. Taylor had the idea to add bubbles around the mermaid to really make it look like she was swimming and then to have the bubble machine on the porch. Pictures wouldn't capture the bubbles but the girls loved it.
Chris' mom made the adorable shirts for the girls. She was so sweet to take Lizzie to the fabric store and let her pick the fabric for her mermaid shirt.
At a friend's birthday party this summer I saw how cute it was when you sewed two strands of crepe paper together and let it ruffle. I just knew it would be the perfect kelp look for the living room and a fairly inexpensive decoration. It took about an hour to sew up two of those huge rolls of green crepe paper together but the end look was awesome. Then I just used push pins to attach them to the ceiling.
We had the party in the morning so I just needed snacks for the kids. We had Under-the-Sea Sushi, Oyster Cookies, Grape Seaweed, Octo-ranch dip and veggies, Goldfish Bait, and Dinglehopper Cupcakes. The sushi is rice krispy treats with a swedish fish and wrapped in a strip of fruit roll-up. Sounds odd, but the combination is pretty yummy. For the Oyster Cookies, I used simple sugar cookies(store bought so they would be a bit firmer) with cream cheese frosting in the middle with a candy pearl(from Hobby Lobby). I learned that it helps to have thicker frosting for this(I refrigerated mine for about an hour first) and to put more towards the opening to give it that clam look. The ranch dip was supposed to have an adorable octopus made from an upside down red bell pepper, but I simply ran out of time. No one seemed to notice. Not everyone understood the Dinglehopper Cupcakes, but if you've seen the movie a few times you know the joke.
If kids didn't want to sing and dance to the videos, then they could play outside and/or decorate a crown. We had foam crowns, peel and stick jewels, and glitter glue pens. Lizzie had told me to make sure there were blue crowns for the boys and I was excited to see that they had as much fun making a crown as the girls.
Lizzie even ditched her fancy Ariel crown at one point to wear the self created one. Taylor was awesome about helping all the younger kids make a crown.
We wrapped the party with the pinata that Lizzie insisted on. I tried to get out of having one since her party was the day after Halloween but when we were at a friend's party and she informed the mom that she was also having a pinata I knew I was in trouble. Lesson also learned that pinata's with the pull strings are very hard to break with a stick. Every kid got to take several whacks at it and it still didn't crack. Then we let them start pulling the strings. I guess there was a candy-clog because barely anything came out. We let another dad take a whack and it split right open. I think he had more fun than the kids!
Our family likes to do a birthday dinner/lunch since the kid's parties can be a bit busy. Lizzie chose Hibachi since that is her current favorite restaurant. She would go there every week if she could. When I asked her what she likes about it she said the noodles, the soup, and the FIRE!
Lizzie insisted on wearing her crown to the restaurant and was a little bummed when I wouldn't let her wear it to church too. She was not shy about asking me to make sure they knew it was her birthday. We've been so much lately that she was predicting what would come next in the food show but she didn't predict that the chef would sing Happy Birthday during his show or that they would bring her out a HUGE ice cream sundae.
It was a wonderful weekend celebrating our baby girl and her fourth birthday. I'm sure Lizzie will try to find some way to keep it going for a few more days and I just might let her. I also know that there is still kelp hanging in my living room and I would rather just spend the time hanging out with my girls than finding the stool to take it down. Maybe I can find a way to turn it into a Christmas decoration.
