Splashing B-day Bash

Since we'll be traveling later on this month, we decided to throw Benjamin's 3rd b-day party a few weeks earlier than his actual birthday (which he was totally fine with ;)). Lately he's been into Octonauts (click here if unfamiliar), swimming, and goldfish crackers (which kid isn't?), so I decided a POOL PARTY would be just perfect for our lil' summer dude.

His party was pretty simple. And when it comes to the younger crowd, simple is good. ;) Below is a pic of the outdoor space we reserved. The venue also provided cake, lemonade, balloons, crepe paper, all paper products, and the cute fisherman net (love little touches like that!). I've decided that venues who provide party planners/decor helpers/kid game organizers/cleaner-uppers are FANTASTIC!

Like how the bunting hung across the pool looks like it was hung up just for our party? Me too. ;) Below are pics of some of my favorite party details...I'm all about cute [store bought] cake and coordinating posters (even if they are mom-made...hey- if I'm not making the cake, I should at least make something!).

                             

   For table snacks, we had Swedish fish, goldfish crackers, and pretzel sticks. Originally, I was going to use my friend Tami's idea of having the kids use the pretzel sticks as fishing poles as they dipped them in peanut butter, then stuck them to a goldfish (kids love this, AND it's yummy), but there were so many other fun things going on...like a super fun scavenger hunt (kudos again to the party coordinator! Yep, not only was she on top of all the party details, but also really GREAT with kids).

To go along with our fishy/aquatic theme, I ordered up some goldfish di-cuts from etsy (you can also find similar here) and simply added on a googly eye (sold in packs at Michaels). I thought it would be fun to include a song (what little kid doesn't love a song to go along?), so hand wrote this one on the backs of all the fishies which we later sang at the party. I was also pretty excited when I came across these dolphin stamps. And since the googly eye made it so our envelopes were not flat, the extra postage cost was needed (between you and I, I would've still bought them anyway ;)). 

All in all we had splashing good time! It was so fun to get all of our friends and family together to not only celebrate Benjamin's birthday, but kids and summer fun. To us, that's what this time of raising a family is all about. Thanks again to everyone who came to party with us!