I knew that I wanted to convince Ella to have a pool party this year. She has gotten so good swimming and it’s so HOT in Alabama right now! At first she wanted to have a Barbie party and y’all know I’m not a fan of character anything. I knew I could throw a tasteful Barbie party if I tried, but my ultimate goal was to steer clear. I saw this party and fell in love with the mermaid theme. When I rushed home to tell Ella my new idea, she was more than receptive. The idea of “being” a mermaid for her big day was so exciting.
For the fourth year in a row, I was tasked with finding a new baker. I have always had great luck with the cake, but for whatever reason they are unable to do my next party. This year April “the cake girl” did such an awesome job recreating my inspiration image. The top layer was chocolate and the bottom was french vanilla. For the first time ever, I had just enough cake for everyone, but didn’t end up with an entire layer to eat myself! You’ll notice later in the images that the 5 isn’t on the cake. There was a slight snafu on the way home (SO not April’s fault) and we just replaced it with five white taper candles. Ella didn’t love the cake any less and it was just as beautiful… and tasty, too!
The sidewalk drawing was Ella’s brainchild. I drew her one when we were playing outside one night and she begged me to do it for her party. I got to Gran’s bright and early that Saturday morning and was pretty much drawing in the dark. I figured that wet fingers and toes (along with buckets of sidewalk chalk) would eliminate this beauty by the end of the day, but she stuck with us.
My dad moved the pergola that my sister was married under to the end of the pool the weekend before the party. It was the perfect place to put the food and made an excellent backdrop for the party. We had lots of yummy food in pretty turquoise dishes and the grass skirts on the table were perfect! I can’t wait to share the story of that massive pinata later this week.
We hung the white poms from Sophie’s party over the table, along with clear plastic beads and clear glass Christmas ornaments to look like bubbles. My original plan involved tulle on the pergola, but we decided it looked like a cheap wedding! Luckily, my eleventh hour idea worked much better and looked better than I could have imagined.
It was so windy outside that day, which was perfect for keeping us all cool, but did not make it easy on our birthday candles. I think she was a little disappointed at first, but she ended up giggling as she “faked” the birthday cake blow-out.
She got so many wonderful gifts this year. I am always so impressed with people’s neat ideas! At her request, she got plenty of Books-a-Million and Gap giftcards so I’m sure we’ll be shopping very soon. She also got some clothes, movies, accessories and tickets to Disney on Ice for later this fall.
But don’t forget the swimming – these kids had a blast!
Once the party was over, my girls didn’t slow down. At least not right away. We swam and ate snow cones and drew on the sidewalk for hours.
And then, we fell asleep.
