Sharks and Penguins

Aly's party theme (he finally decided after some lengthy waffling on the subject) this year was Sharks and Penguins!

I never do this, but I thought you'd like a "behind the scenes," look at the chaos before the magic. I thought 2 and a half hours to make all the food was plenty. Sounds reasonable... right? Apparently not. The shark cupcakes (idea HERE) were the most ambitious cupcakes I have made to date, and did not at all work out the way her instructions said. Boo. I was stressy and mad and had to call for back up.

Thankfully I have WONDERFUL back up to call upon (Although Cindy declared she wouldn't decorate with such perfectionists -- me and Tyler-- again. We'll see...):

(Corey was helping too, and Grampa watched the kiddos!)

We finally got it all finished and cleaned up. I changed into party appropriate clothes and then we had a minute to just hang out before things got started.

To occupy the kiddos as everyone arrived, we colored shark and penguin coloring pages. The kids were goofy and fun from the get-go.
Alice colored her penguin yellow... which she thought was just downright hilarious and off it went from there! I love the picture with Benjamin covering a laugh. What a cute boy!

Since we were all gathered around the table and our craft had 2 phases, our first activity was to start making our paper plate penguins. Idea HERE.

The first game was called "What time is it Mr. Shark?"

The leader, Mr. Shark, leads everyone in an action. Whatever Mr. Shark is doing, the other children must mimic: jumping, clapping, etc. Then I called out at different intervals "What time is it Mr. Shark???" He calls out "1:00," or another time, and the game goes on like that until Mr. Shark decides to answer "DINNER TIME!!!" He turns into a shark and captures one of his friends who then becomes the next Mr. Shark.

Aly LOVED this one. He had been looking forward to it the most I think and he played an excellent Mr. Shark to start everyone out.

Here are some of the action shots:

Next we had a good old fashioned relay race. They were sharks on the way over (see them practicing their big shark mouth arms???) and then waddling penguins on the way back. Not all the children understood the idea of it being a relay race so it kind of just turned into a regular race... but they had fun doing it so I was satisfied!

Up Next: Sharks vs. Penguins.
There were 2 teams. The first team was the sharks and their job was to eat as many fish (pop as many balloons) as possible. The penguins were trying to save the fish (keep the balloons away from the sharks!). We counted how many balloons were popped in the first round and then the teams switched roles. Whichever team ate the most fish won!

Both teams did great! And remarkably... Truman wasn't scared! He walked all through the chaos without a problem. I don't understand that baby... cries his fool head off when I shake a box of pasta from across the room... but screaming kids and popping balloons... Nothin'!

After games we finished up the craft:

The finished products:

And time for cake! We had shark cupcakes (I'll spare you the run down of why they turned out differently and why we made the choices we did that were different than the original idea.) and Shark Gummies:

And a giant Penguin Cake (Idea HERE. I did it slightly different to cut down on costs, and I think he still turned out great!) One of my favorite moments of the party was when Spencer Jarvi saw him for the first time. He looked up at me and said "That Penguin is SO CUTE!" Then all the other kids let me know that they liked him too. On a side note... have you ever baked a cake in a Pyrex bowl? Fun stuff, people, fun stuff!

Blowing out the candle:

And chowing down!

Cute food ideas we didn't end up using: HERE, HERE and HERE.

Nothing was left but to head to the pool!
At the pool Alaster opened presents from his generous friends:

And we were joined by our guests parents and siblings. Here is darling baby Emily and mommy Marianne:

The kids all had a wonderful time playing together:

A new skill learned this summer: Noodle water spraying.

The kids left with little thank-you bags and their craft/coloring pages:

Isn't Mr. Morgan handsome?

Alaster deemed the party a success and I was satisfied. I wanted him SO MUCH to have a good time, and he did! Thanks to our friends Benjamin Stewart, Andrew Cromar, Spencer Jarvi, and Alice Evans who joined us!

Our camera broke right after the festivities so I didn't get any pictures of Aly coming home and opening presents from Gram and Grampa and Tyler who had stayed at the house to watch Truman. He loved them though and has been playing with his leap pad every day!

And now... as Corey pointed out... we are done with Birthday Bashes till next year!