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This year Minnie wanted a Fish Party. I love planning their parties! It is a way I can show them how much I love them in a way that is meaningful to them. So I planned a fun party for family & friends. Here are the invitations – fish of course! I used a brad to attach a circle behind the spins to give guests all the birthday details.

Decorations – I hung different length blue & light blue streamers all over our family room. Then I hung inflatable 10” fish throughout so you felt like you were in the ocean. It was pretty cool.  In our dinning room I also hung a net which I stuck a lobster, sea star, and shells in (I think that was my favorite part). And in the hallway I put two layers of streamers for the kids to go through when they ‘dove’ into the ocean. It was really cool!!!

The Cake – The cake is the centerpiece of most birthday parties, right? In my head I had a vision of how it would look…. so I started searching online to make it possible. I found a recipe to make edible glass (if anyone wants more information on this let me know), chocolate rocks, and then  came up with my own way of putting it together & making it work. Here is what I used to make it come together.

• The first day I had everything put together except for the edible glass (tastes like a lollipop). Then I tinted the back glass to make the fish look like they were swimming in water. I decided the sides came up too far and didn’t allow much light. In my original dream I pictured 4 sides of glass, but it made it hard to see the inside of the aquarium as clearly or blow out the candle.

• I made two kinds of cake pops: Chocolate Chip Cookie and Strawberry – they were both AMAZING!! (Recipes & cake pop directions coming!) I loved the puffer fish, schooling red & yellow small fish, red crab, and many other colorful fish.

• To we finally decided to break off the side pieces of glass to allow more light, but still get the effect. I put cardstock around the bottom to make the bottom lip of the aquarium – it said Happy Birthday! I am so pleased with how it turned out!! Check out how it looked from the back – isn’t that too cool?!?!

• The birthday girl was mighty pleased =-)  Her face & joy made it soooooo worth it!

Craft – The kids all made their own fish bowl to take home. It was simple and fun.

GAMES  - Doesn’t this look inviting? There are 50 blue balloons inside the pool (don’t worry we scrubbed the pool thoroughly before we brought it indoors!) I envisioned a giant ball pit and this was the easiest and most cost effective way of doing it! We are playing lots of games centered around it!

• We let the kids just play in the “ocean”,
• Fish, Fish, SHARK - like duck duck goose but when a child shots SHARK every one jumps out of the ocean
• Save the Fish – A fisherman comes and gets the inflatable fish out of the ocean. The kids go and ‘rescue’ the fish and put them back in the ocean (I was inspired for this activity from Finding Nemo)
• The fish Picks a Friend –to the tune of The Farmer & The dell – make a circle around the pool and sing the fish picks a crab, the fish picks a crab, hi ho the dario the fish picks a crab. Then the crab gets to get in the pool with the fish and we sing “The crab picks an octopus, the crab picks an octopus,etc.
• SHARK – The fish all hid. Then the shark went to find them and tried to swim away (back to the pool) before the shark got them
• Read “The Pout Pout Fish” – Minnie’s favorite book & the reason she wanted a fish party

• As watching the birthday girl open presents can be boring for other children we took 2 breaks and sang action songs: Head & Shoulders Knees and Toes and Hockey Pokey (putting our right foot in the pool =-)
• I hid some surprises in some of the balloons (fish bouncy balls, stickers, google eye rings, and mini tootsie pops. At the end we gave each child (paired with an adult for safety) a stick to pop balloons and find surprises. It was FUN and helped with clean-up!!

I got these super cute fish in a bag to give to the guests – it’s actually soap!! Not only does it look ADORABLE, but it is just glycerin (no die, no perfumes!)