9449

Hawaiian 4yr - Tropical Flower Invites

September 2004

Lisa in Jacksonville, Florida

Special Mention

4year old Luau Party For my daughter’s 4th birthday we planned a Hawaiian party! I was born in Hawaii so we thought it would be fun. 

We started with the invitations. I got clear party bags and partially filled them with play sand and shells from the dollar store. They have great bowls of beautiful shells for only a dollar and they looked very exotic. The actual invitations were individual flowers printed and cut from card stock strung on orange raffia. Each flower had part of the information for the party on it. The 1st flower said, Hula on over to  2nd flower: Jillian’s  Birthday Luau. The 3rd flower had the date and time, 4th- Tropical attire please, 5th flower RSVP and our phone number. I put the lei in the bag with sand and shells and tied it at the top with more raffia and attached a tag with the child’s name written in Hawaiian. You can find that on http://www.hisurf.com/hawaiian/names.html . 

I have a great friend who used a jig saw and made 2 giant(7 feet tall) palm trees out of wood. She attached 3 wooden coconuts to each tree. I leaned them at the entrance to our front door. The front walk was lined with tiki torches (not lit) and we had a bubble machine shooting bubbles from behind one of the trees. I also had Hawaiian music playing as well. The party was in the Spring so my husband had several large pots of flowers around the entrance. I have hanging door signs that say, Gone to the beach When the guests walked into the foyer I had colorful leis hanging from my dining room chandelier, each guest got one as they entered. 

LOTS of orange balloons were hanging from the ceiling from metallic ribbon creating a festive air. Also on the table was multi-colored plastic coconut cups (from oriental) with a fancy straw to be given as a favor later. The straws had a parrot, pineapple or hibiscus on them. The cake was on the table too. It was a beach scene with palm trees and Hawaiian girls. As the guests walked from the foyer to the living room they had to go through some hanging blow up fish dangling between shiny green kelp. It was actually metallic green ribbon I cut and taped up. I had a neighborhood high school student who needed volunteer hours come help out as the welcome hostess. She wore a hula skirt and as the girls entered she directed them to a table to make pretty tissue paper flowers. There were also Lilo and stitch pictures to color on another table. The entire kitchen and food table were skirted in hula table skirts (from oriental) and so was the fireplace mantle. I had paper Pineapples and lights adorning the mantle too. 

On the sliding glass door I taped a paper palm tree that I got at a local party store. I printed paper coconuts on card stock and cut them out so the girls could play pin the coconut on the tree. There was a baby pool in the screened porch with sand and shells in it. Anyone who wanted to could play in it or pick out a shell or two. We also had chicken limbo set up in there as well. More tropical music was playing outside in the back.

Once all the guests arrived I moved the bubble machine out to the back yard.The kids totally enjoyed that. I highly recommend purchasing one. We've used it for several parties. You can get them at Micheal's and use the 40% off coupon they have in the Sunday paper each week. I had more tiki torches lining the backyard and a huge Tiki beach umbrella from Costco for shade. It was a big hit!  I had lots of chairs and outdoor furniture set up for the adults as the children searched for sparkly plastic jewel sea life from the dollar store. They used there coconut cups to collect them. They are like beads only bigger and in the shape of  shells, fish, pineapples etc.. My son hid them before the party. The girls were having a ball just playing on our big swing set for a while and the parents socialized and fixed lunch plated for themselves and their children.

There were chicken nuggets from Chick-fil-A with Polynesian sauce of course and crust-less sandwiches of egg salad, chicken salad and tuna salad. This worked out well because one of the children was a vegetarian so they could eat the egg salad. I couldn’t serve peanut butter and jelly due to a child with an allergy to peanuts. There were multicolored Gold fish and lots of fresh fruit like grapes, orange slices, pineapple and melons. I made a fruit salad from mandarin oranges, pineapple, coconut, mini marshmallow and sour cream. I also had cheese cubes, little pigs in a blanket and chips. My husband worked hard to put together fruit skewers for the drinks. We made a punch from cherry seven up and sherbet. There was also a cooler with bottled water and Capri sun. 

I had coconuts on the table as well and we played hot coconut (like hot potato). We had a big pinata which I hung from the swing set. It had the string pulls and we let each girl take a string carefully then on the count of 3 they all pulled at once! That way everyone got to pull and no one knew who actually ripped it open. I had prepared party bags ahead of time so each girl just picked up the bag full of treats and it was all fair with no fights. LOVED THAT. We sang happy birthday outside then served the cake with ice cream cups. That was much easier than scooping. My volunteer took the cake cut it and passed it out while I passed out the ice cream. The favors were the lei, the coconut filled with jewels and the bag of candy and stickers. I had tattoos of palm trees and Lilo and stitch available but none of the girls felt like getting a tattoo so I just sent them home. We had a great time!

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