"Daddy, I Don't Want This" / Avery's Birthday

Okay, so my Benjamin is the one who knocked out 2 top teeth, within 3 months of each other, 2 years ago (he was only 3).  At dinner the other night, he was eating chicken.  He says, "Daddy, I don't want this."  Jim held out his hand, thinking he was going to get a piece of chicken.  Instead, he got one of Benjamin's bottom teeth!  We're not sure if it was even loose.  It was the whole tooth, root and all, that came out.  Benjamin just handed over the tooth and kept on eating!

Avery had her 7th birthday last Friday.  Her party was Saturday.  She wanted a girls only swim party at Gramma's house.  Her theme was mermaids.  If you haven't tried out Pinterest....oh, you should.  Now, I'm not one that has the time or the desire to just get on there and look and look and look.  However, if there's something specific I'm looking for, it's a great place to browse.  So, I searched for mermaid party ideas, and got a lot.

Cake/Icrecream:  I didn't get to the make the mermaid cake I really wanted to make because, amazingly enough, I do not own a fish mold.  But I was pretty happy with the cake I made.  I usually make her an icecream cake, but just didn't want to this year.  So I tried a Jello poke cake.  I used a strawberry cake and blue berry jello (I wanted part of the cake to be purple).  It was really moist and good.  The frosting is a recipe a friend gave me.  I won't use any other frosting now.  It's just instant pudding mix and whipping cream.  You can use any flavor.  I used vanilla so I could use food coloring to color it.  It was supposed to be blue, but turned out green.  It worked.  It is the best tasting frosting (IMO), and so easy to manipulate on the cake.  I got the icecream idea from Pinterest.  I absolutely hate the serving mess of icecream at parties, which is why I typically make an icecream cake.  But this idea saved the mess.  It's pre-dipped scoops in cupcake cups.  Just pull 'em out of the freezer when you're ready to serve up the cake!  Fabulous!  (the waves are a bit funky looking, but Avery knew they were waves)

Decorations:  Since it was a swim party, I didn't do a lot with decorations.  We hung blue and green streamers at the front door, so it kinda seemed like they were entering through water.  We also hung a sign welcoming all the mermaids to Avery's party.  Then I made fish balloons that I found on Pinterest and hung them throughout the house.  So cute, and so easy!





Food:  We did the party in the evening (after dinner time) and decided to do snacks.  You guessed it....I found the ocean-related snack ideas on Pinterest, as well as the cute labels (which my mother-in-law made up on her computer).  I actually ended up puting the 'octopops' with the goodie bags instead of on the snack table.  The only thing I forgot to label was the lemonade (which was gonna be 'ocean water').  I put the snacks in sand toys and sand bucket and used shovels for some for scoops.

We had a really good time and everything was so easy to do.  The only things we missed were all her little male friends.  But she sure like all the girly attention!

Avery Saying:  We were in the car and Avery was in the backseat reading.  This is part of what she read out of Purplicious (however it's spelled).  "I wrote with my pink pen in my pink diarrhea."  I laughed so hard I couldn't even tell her what was so funny!