8900

Victoria's Luau 7yr - Inflatable Palm Trees

June 2004

Terri in Metairie, LA USA

Special Mention

Victoria’s 7th birthday Luau!  We just had our daughter’s 7th birthday luau and it was so much fun!  We could have not asked for more as everything went so well and the weather was perfect. Our luau ended up consisting of 127 guest so quite a nice group.   The location that we picked was an outdoor shelter at a playground that had plenty of tables and play equipment/swings close by.  We had the party later in the afternoon as figured that it would be a cooler time of day since the party was at the end of May.  We had a spacejump for the children that had a big monkey and palm trees on it to tie in with our theme.  We planned this party for about a year so had plenty of time to purchase items with a Hawaiian theme for the party.   

Invitation and Decorations: We went with a Hula girl party invitation.  On the exterior of the envelopes I stenciled Aloha with a brass stencil on each envelope and also stamped a hula girl on each envelope.  The colors used for the party were turquoise, kiwi green and hot pink. I purchased several turquoise and also hot pink table skirts with Hawaiian flowers on them to put around the tables.  The tablecloths were all turquoise to symbolize blue water.  For decorations, we purchased an inflatable palm tree, fresh pineapples, Hawaiian style maracas, paper pineapples, marbled balloon and a large Hula girl mylar balloon. 

For the kid’s snacks, I used sand buckets w/ shovel and glued Hawaiian flowers on the outside of the buckets.  I also had purchased the year before through the Disney catalog a Hawaiian themed ceramic bowl, which I used for the Chicken cabbage salad. I also purchased a matching Hawaiian platter that I put a Cheese torte on. 

Attire: for the 4 of us, I purchased matching Hawaiian outfits from the Disney catalog last summer.  My husband and son wore the matching Hawaiian shirts with white shorts and my daughter and I wore the same print matching sundresses.  We received many compliments on our matching Hawaiian outfits!   At our welcome table, each child received a Hawaiian lei, Hawaiian flower hair clip for girls and bright color sunglasses for the boys.  We also had nametags available for all where they could look up their name in Hawaiian and write it on their nametag.  The Hawaiian name binder was well received and the kids enjoyed looking up their name. I found the names on alohafriends website and put the print out of all names into a clear binder. I took some loose Hawaiian petals and decorated the exterior of the binder with the flowers so looked very festive and pretty. I put a label on the binder that said, look up your Hawaiian name.  

Music: purchased several Hawaiian music and party music CD’s to add to the atmosphere.  

Activities:  We had two bubble machines one by the welcome table and the other by our bubble station.  Aloha Bubble station set up table with a mermaid bubble machine on it and also another bubble machine that puts out tons of bubbles (can buy this bubble machine at Wal-Mart for $15.00 find by party supplies and plates).  I then had about 14 bubble wands for the kids to play with the bubbles.    

Tiki Tattoo station- table set up with removable tattoos.  Found on Oriental trading website Hawaiian themed tattoos.  This table was a big hit, as the kids loved having the tattoos put on their arms and also on their face.  The kids all looked so cute running around with their tattoos.  A dear friend was in charge of our tattoo station and did a great job with putting the tattoos on the kids.   

Kid Hawaiian skirts I purchased one dozen kid size hula skirts which I thought would be fun for the kids to play dress up with while at the party.  My brother figured out how to put the kid skirts around a tree with rope and then put a paper clip to hold each skirt onto the rope. The skirts looked so nice and colorful around the tree.  The kids quickly caught on to the idea of putting on the skirts so this was a big hit and they took turns wearing them.   

Limbo we had a limbo kit so of course we played the Limbo song several times as the kids took turns with the limbo.  We had a total of 54 children so they all lined up and took turn going through.  This was so much fun for them.  We had the bubble machine going in the background so it was neat to see the tiny bubbles as well as they did this activity.    The kid equipment and swings close by was also well received.  We had children from the ages of newborn up to age 11.  While some jumped on the spacewalk, the other ones played on the equipment and swings, others with the hula skirts, bubbles and tattoo stations.   All age groups really enjoyed themselves!  

Food: Since going with the Luau theme, decided to serve Cuban food.  Typical Cuban dishes included roasted pork, congri (black beans with rice), yuca (root family like a potato) and sweet plantains. The Cuban food was catered and was really enjoyed by all.  I made a sign that said Cuban cuisine and labeled with menu cards each food item so everyone knew what they were eating.  I just thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce Cuban food to those that may have not had it and those that had love it! Figured that Hawaiian food consist of different ethnic backgrounds so this would also work.

Besides the Cuban cuisine, we served a cheese torte (cream cheese, feta cheese) with pita chips that was wonderful.  We also had chicken cabbage salad, tray of Meringues a la kiss (meringue with chocolate kiss inside), watermelon boat with cut fruit in it decorated with fruit kabobs and Hawaiian paper umbrellas, another fruit salad made with cool whip, customized almond cookies cut out in Hawaiian theme shapes and decorated in party colors to match theme (#7, Hawaiian skirt, palm tree, pineapple, sail boat and fish).  We also had a delicious crawfish dip that my friend that was managing the tattoo station made.  In the kid sand buckets we had all the kid oriented snacks such as gummy bears, fruit loops (my 3 yr. old loves these), Ghiradella covered macadamia nuts with toffee on the interior, rainbow color fish crackers, chex mix mixed with bag of mm’s, tropical nut mix and curly cheetos.   

Drinks:  Had several clear buckets for the drinks, which were decorated with floral Hawaiian leis on the exterior top.  One bucket for ice, one for Hawaiian punch with fruit cocktail, one with Starbucks ice coffee, one with 48 small bottles of water, one with Kool aid burst drinks in turquoise and red to match colors, soft drinks, beer and hospitality punch in an ice chest for the adults which was a hit as well.   We also went ahead and got a snowball machine for the kids.  It was a hot day so knew this would be well received. The snowball machine was a big hit. I also had placed some cup plastic charms that you could put on the outside of your cup like we use to do when growing up when buying icees.  

Cake: The cake was just beautiful.  It was ordered from a French bakery in the French Quarter in New Orleans and was of a chocolate doberge with white cake for the batter and chocolate pudding between the layers.  The exterior of the cake was decorated with a Hawaiian girl that turned out just beautiful.  A lot of the decorations where sculpted out of marzipan. He even put a palm tree on the cake and had what looked like small coconuts fall off the tree.  I had them write in Hawaiian Happy Birthday.  For the candles, I used floating hibiscus candles and had the baker place on the cake and it really looked very pretty.   

Party favors Each child received a pair of hand painted wooden maracas. Each set was tagged with a note saying thank you for celebrating with me and I ink stamped a Hawaiian girl on each tag as I had done for the envelopes on the party invitations and also on the menu cards. For the babies under 3, they each received a bath toy squirt blowfish or rubber duck. As mentioned above, each child also received Hawaiian lei, flower clip for girls and sunglasses for the boys.   Everything really went great!  I could not have been more pleased with the turnout and how everything worked out.  Of course, a lot of preparation went into the party so that makes things run much smoother. My parents, husband, brother, family and friends all helped out so that made everything work better as well.      

I have received many compliments on the party and had a few people come up to me that had heard about our party.  I think the key thing is to give yourself as much time as possible to plan for your event.  You will save money this way as well.  I purchased many party decorations on sale back in the winter time and some things at the end of the summer.  We are considering a Beach party for next year since we now have a lot of the decorations that we can also use for this theme party.

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