This past April, Brayden celebrated his golden birthday (he turned 5 on the 5th). After a lot of back and forth on discussing a theme, what we wanted to do, etc, he finally decided on a Maui (from Moana) theme with a water slide at our house. He recently discovered the song "You're Welcome" and well...it's all history from there!
Let me first start off saying that I was thrilled with the theme he chose because I love Hawaii! In order to make this less focused on "Moana" and more on Maui/Hawaii, the decor drifted more towards palm leaves, the ocean, and a little Maui character I found on Etsy. I was seriously thrilled with the way it all came together.
As far as colors go, you can see the ones we worked with above (yellow, teal blue, orange, green, and gold for the golden birthday year). Also to note, my options were sort of limited this year because our Hobby Lobby still remains closed from the damage it took during Hurricane Laura. I did make one trip out of town to visit Hobby Lobby, but it's about an hour away so visiting frequently was out of the option. I think the whole party came together pretty well considering the resources I had available to use!
For the entry way, I made a little welcome sing from a white surfboard looking object I found at Dollar Tree. It was supposed to be used for laundry room decor and served as a decorative ironing board sign but I repurposed it as a surf board! Hah!
Thankfully, our Target and Party City were open this year, so that helped a ton! The table cloth you see here as well as the leaf banner across the front were all on clearance at Target so I snagged up what they had!
This cake was an idea from Pinterest and my usual cake lady ran with it. The figurines on top of the cake were from JC Penney (that's all I could find and I think I literally got the last one) and I let Brayden pick out his candle. Most recently, his favorite color is blue! :)
The cookies were delicious as always and made by a friend of mine. I think she did a decent job!
The entry way table had a couple of photos, some balloons, and the treat bags for his friends. The treat bags included a mini sand/bucket set to play with at the beach, a few pieces of candy, a lei, and a small beach ball. I found all of those items at Party City, too.
We had shirts made that I thought were pretty funny! Jason's says "just your ordinary Demi-Dad" and mine says "Today got me feeling like Hei-Hei". They turned out so cute!
For food, we decided to go with pizza and finger foods this year. Due to COVID, we wanted to encourage everyone to stay outside as much as possible and be able to grab and go quickly.
Y'all know I love a good "themed" food, so I made place cards with names!
Life preservers = gummy life savers
Coconuts = whoppers
Bamboo = pirouette cookies
I purchased a pineapple but wasn't sure how to cut it, so I left it as a decor item! :)
I thought the idea behind "fish and chips" was cute. The taffy in front was another Pinterest idea - it's key lime flavored with white/green swirl (aka, the Heart of TeFiti)!
The trays I used under a lot of these dishes came from Party City. They are actually supposed to be "chargers", but this worked perfectly!
There was also plenty of salty sea water....I mean hand sanitizer around the house!
As far as beverages go, we had water in bottles, sweet tea, and juice pouches.
Brayden picked out his favorite juice pouch and I love how it worked with the theme! Didn't even do that on purpose!
We also had a coffee bar set up for the adult party guests.
One of my favorite mini-details was the coffee cups. They came from Party City as well!
For creamer options, we had plain creamer, almond milk, and funfetti coffee mate. The coffee mate was a big hit! I really like the funfetti flavor, too.
Moving outside, we had our Alexa devices connected so party music could be heard throughout the house/outdoors.
The water slide was HUGE (I misjudged the size). It was a giant volcano though, and totally fit with the overall theme!
Finding a piñata to fit this theme that wasn't an astronomical price was rather difficult. Finally though, I found a cute palm tree (on postmark of all places) and added a 5/Maui decal to the front once it came in.
The pinata was "legit" and came from Mexico so it was incredibly hard to break. I finally had to rip it in half!
The kids had so much fun on the slide!!
We also invited Brayden's little class at his school and out of 12 total kids, five of them were there! (We missed one before she left.) He was SO excited to have his friends join us for the party!
Brayden had SO MUCH FUN at his party and is still talking about it!
He was so worn out, he fell asleep outside! Shortly before this, he butted heads on the slide with one of his little friends and it wasn't fully convinced that his jaw was ok. After a nap and a little Tylenol though, he woke up feeling fine! I felt so bad for him, but it didn't totally ruin the day! He still had a blast playing with all of his friends!
By the end of the evening, all of the party decor had been taken down and we joked that Brayden looked like a balloon CM at Walt Disney World! :)
Speaking of balloons, these were all ordered off of Amazon. The palm trees and pineapples also came in a package with pink flamingos. Those poor pineapples would not stand up straight! I had to tape them to the palm trees because otherwise, they literally stayed upside-down. So if you happen to come across a similar package, just know you'll have to finagle the pineapples to make them cooperate!
Anyway, that's a wrap on Brayden's 5th and golden birthday Maui themed party. To me, it was the most fun one yet because he truly got to play, see his friends/family, and enjoy his time at his party. Seeing the light in Brayden's eyes when he talks about how much fun he had makes it all worth it!!
Thanks for continuing to join us on all of our Disney/family/party adventures! I have a few days remaining in our February recap plus a 5 year old update coming for you soon! Have a magical weekend!!
During the COVID quarantine earlier this year, my son turned 4 years old. Originally, we'd planned to back up his party into May which then turned to June. Even though it was 2 months late and super small, he still had a blast and that's what truly matters!
The theme for his party this year was Lightning McQueen! I found a LOT of ideas on pinterest and wanted to share them with you here today.
Ka-chow! Brayden's swim outfit (including shoes) were all from Shop Disney last year.
The idea for our shirts also came from pinterest and I had a friend make them. We loved being a part of this pit crew!
At the entry way table, I included a few pictures as well as an "about me" age 4 print out. I'm not sure how long I'll keep those up, but they've been a fun tradition since his first birthday! Also, the "tires" are inflatable pool floats from amazon. They even got a double use - later in the day, we used them to play on the water slide!
Included in each kids gift bag was a sheet of stickers, a grab & go pack, a little toy car, and a "piston cup". I also threw extra candy from the pinata in there, too!
In the living room, I decided to make banners from my silhouette machine again. The one you see on the TV included symbols from the movie (such as a lightning bolt, a route 66 sign, the number 95, and "4th" in the Cars font). The mantle held the traditional "Happy Birthday Brayden" banner as well as a couple of photos and the "FOUR" letters that were purchased from Hobby Lobby. (Basically, I've been keeping those letters every year, adding the additional ones that I need and repainting them to match the party colors.)
In the kitchen as far as food goes, I tried to be as "COVID cautious" as possible, so every platter included a set of grabbers! If the item could be individually wrapped or bagged, it was.
How cute are these tags? They came from pinterest!
Peep the coffee condiment package in the white bowl! (If you're a Walt Disney World fan, you recognize them!) I knew they would come in handy one day! :)
Coffee and parties at my house go hand in hand!
For the main food, we offered hamburgers and chicken nuggets. Nuggets might be my child's favorite food group.
Throughout the house, I had various photos that were taken between our photographer in October as well as our Disney World trip in February. All of the photos that were framed had something to do with Lightning McQueen. These frames are also the same from his prior birthday parties, I just re-paint them to match the party colors!
I used the front table to hold the cake and cookies! At first I wasn't going to do a helium tank but then changed my mind when I saw that I'd already purchased the foil balloons you see here! (Initially, I'd purchased all of the decor back in March when his party was supposed to be in May, so I couldn't remember all I bought!)
The orange cones were in a box of 8 and I placed them in various locations throughout the house. I also purchased the cones on Amazon.
Our same cake friend from previous birthdays made his cake and I think it turned out adorable! I added the cars pieces (they were from his Christmas advent calendar) as well as the Happy Birthday Brayden banner in the back. The candles were purchased from Amazon.
My friend that made his cookies the past several parties also made these! Aren't they precious?
As an added touch, I thought it would be fun to have the Cars movie playing on the TV (without sound) and the Cars soundtrack playing throughout the house/outside on our Alexa home system! It worked beautifully!
As a final indoor touch, I found these posters from the opening of Cars Land at Disneyland and printed them out!
Since a good majority of this party was set to take place outside, we added a few pieces of decor out there, too!
I know you can't see it well, but there's a big "Ka-Chow" on the fence!
Apart from celebrating with family and friends, the highlight of the party for Brayden was his water slide! Initially, I had plans to let him swim and his friends join him from 11-noon, then stop and do cake, eat, open presents, etc. However, when family started to arrive at 11 a.m., Brayden wanted to get out of the pool and hang out with them. It was his party so we went with it!
While waiting for the burgers to finish cooking, the kids took to the trampoline!
Time for presents!
Due to COVID, we sang happy birthday and blew candles out on a cupcake instead of the big cake! Whomp whomp.
This kid is a Paw Patrol fiend! I have a feeling that will be his birthday party theme next year!
Another highlight of this party and something Brayden had looked forward to for a long time was the pinata. He couldn't wait to get to that candy!
After the pinata, it was time to SWIM and boy were they ready! I'm serious when I say that my child did not get off of that water slide from the moment they began swimming at his party to about 6 p.m. that night! It was well worth the money spent to rent it!
After a majority of the kids all left, the adults hopped on the slide with Brayden for a little fun! I seriously loved this thing!!
At the end of the day, it was a great party and we all had a wonderful time! We loved being able to swim, hang out with family and friends, and simply celebrate the life of our sweet "big" four year old! If you'd like to see a video recap of the party, check out the link below! :)
