Toby loves the small beach at Indian Riverside Park so I decided to do his birthday party there. Even though I called to make my reservation about three months ago the Saturday before his birthday was booked with a public event and I didn't want to have the party on a Sunday so we had his party a little early.
As for the sea turtle theme - Toby's room is sea turtles and "turtle" was one of Toby's earliest words. And it's not as though Toby is committed to any characters yet (Elmo and Mickey Mouse are emerging as favorites but don't quite have birthday party status) so I got to just do what I wanted.
Now for the usual play by play... I have a very detail oriented mind but I'm not very gifted in the crafty department, so I consider everything I do very, very doable. I just want to pass on the borrowable ideas!
I ordered invites through zazzle.com:
Goodie Bags
Also from Zazzle, I ordered some stickers of sea turtles for the take-home goodie-bag, as well as printed stickers for the outside of this bag:
See, it's got a sea turtle and says, Happy 2nd Birthday, Toby!
The rest of the goodie bag had a Fragile X Information Card, a fact card about local sea turtles that I made by pulling info from here, a little chocolate turtle made by Lindt (that I randomly found after Easter on sale), and a classic candy turtle.
I'm not committed to the practice of goodie bags especially if it's just plastic junk, but if I can provide one more happy candy moment for the car-ride home as well as some information than I'm all for it. Plus, I like having something to send home to siblings who may not have been able to come.
Food:
We grilled hot dogs, had watermelon, a veggie tray, mini cupcakes, and (although I almost forgot about them) ice cream cups.
I had fun with the food display:
Yup, I put a turtle on the table. And you thought you had big serving platters. :-)
You can't really tell from these pics but the watermelon and veggie tray are packed on ice. (Eventually floating in ice...) You could use a turtle like this for any critter themed party. Would also work as a fun water-balloon holder for a splash party.
I didn't do cupcake toppers this time, but it was still a pretty and colorful array:
Kaden and Blue chowing down. Why is Blue eating his hotdog out of the bun?
Mmmmmm. Toby went through a few of these slices.
Activities:
There is an intercoastal beach and a fountain at this park. Those were our activities! Us in front of the fountain:
But... I also set up the tables like this:
The tables were covered in bulletin board paper that I bought at a teacher supply store. (I'm all about covering tables with colorable paper.) Both tables were pretty filled up with sea turtle art (by kids and adults!), but I didn't think to take a pic the end.
I also set up a table with sea turtle tattoos: (I'm all about tattoos and/or face painting.)
Other Decor:
I had the idea to make photo streamers with at least one pic of Toby from each month this past year.
I was pretty in love with them, but...
For an OUTSIDE party it turned out to be a DUMB idea. It was too breezy and it was clear as I was trying to hang the first one it was going to rip to shreds. I ended up putting the pictures around like this:
This was my main party disappointment. But, in other decor, there was this t-shirt I'd bought Kevin:
Obviously a good reminder for ME.
Even better than Kevin's shirt was the one I had made for Toby. I also got him sea turtle swim trunks. Here he is at the house posing in his party outfit:
Ok yes, if you add swim trunks, shirts, etc to party costs it adds up. But we don't do much by way of presents come birthday time. This outfit, this party count as presents, so from that perspective it doesn't feel like too much. (At least not to me!)
Happy Birthday to my sweet Toby. In about one more week my not-so-little guy will be two!
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