A Hawaiian Birthday

Hau`oli Lā Hānau  (Happy Birthday) to my sweet 12 year old Sunshine!
As you can see, she chose a Hawaiian themed party. She's always had a little fascination with Hawaii. I'm not sure why but I think it's the romantic in her. This is her second Hawaiian themed birthday party, the first was when she was only 7.

Apparently a luau theme is a popular graduation/summer theme so when your birthday is in May, it's easy to find decorations like a grass skirt for your table!

 

I made a banner to greet her using this Tiki Palms font and some free handed paper leaves.

I also printed up our names in Hawaiian using this website and made a little travel vocabulary sheet with some of her favorite things.

 

First thing in the morning, we listened to Hawaiian music here and over on Pandora while we decorated flip flops! We needed to get an early start on these so that the glue would have time to dry completely. This was a wonderful craft that the girls really enjoyed. All you need is flip flops, some ribbon (I recommend grosgrain, about a yard for each left and right) and doodads to accessorize with. BigBoy used buttons and the girls found these little beaded discs in the same aisle as the flip flops.

 Start on one side, using Fast Grab Tacky Glue, glue the ribbon down (starting under the strap would probably be better, but ours were too tight to pry up), wrap around the flip flop strap overlapping a little as you go. You can choose to wrap around the toe post or not, it's up to you.  Secure the ends with clamps or clothespins until completely dry.  I used hot glue for the center doodads.

BigBoy helped decorate a very masculine pair for himself. The Professor would have joined in, but like his momma, he has an aversion to things touching or separating his toes and doesn't wear flip flops. (And now you know more about me than you ever wanted to know, I'm sure!)

She received some beautiful and thoughtful gifts from loved ones far away (and a special gift from us). These sweet little baubles came all the way from Hawaii in the suitcase of a little sister who came to visit Texas. Sunshine was thrilled, can't you tell! Thank you, Miss Mary! I hope I don't have to wait to meet all of Jessica's sisters before I finally get to meet her!



After we met some delightful new friends for a too quick meet and greet at our favorite girl store, we came home and made shaved ice with fun flavors. I bought this Back to Basics machine on clearance one fall when a horrific stomach bug was rampaging through the whole family and ice chips were all anyone could stomach. We pulled it out for an afternoon treat today and enjoyed it so much more than that first time! (Our local Target store had the flavored syrups for less than Amazon.) I was going to let them learn this hula dance via ActivityTV but we ran out of time!

 For her cake, after seeing these inspirational cakes, she chose a fancy layered cake (which means wedding cake layers) with tropical looking flowers all around. An Incredible Melted Ice Cream Cake from the Cake Mix Doctor book with a white frosting was delicious and made with strawberry ice cream ended up pink on the inside, Sunshine's favorite color! Silk flowers made decoration a snap! Which was great since I had to start on BigBoy's cake this evening! And if you are reading this on Wednesday, that means that Birthday Party #2 has begun. Say a prayer that my eyes are open. What was I thinking when I kept my legs crossed seven years ago insisting that they both needed to have their own birthday?