Cady's Birthday Beach Party!

Usually, I am the mom who has her kids' birthday parties planned out about 3 months in advance, or at least knows the theme and locale.  Not so this year!!  I was really stressing over where to have Cady's 9 Year birthday party.  Our new house is pretty finished on the inside, but far from finished on the outside (landscaping, etc) and we have no pool this year.  Her birthday is at a time that is too hot (and muggy) for a park, we've done the movie theater and Chuck E Cheese, we didn't want to do the bowling alley, and there really aren't many other options in Las Cruces.  Sometime during the first part of July, Cady asked about a Full Moon party at White Sands.  I thought for a minute and realized that was a perfect place for a party - especially a beach party!!  Like I said on the invitations, "No Water, but Lots of Sand!"

 

THE INVITATIONS

The invitations were adapted from an idea I saw on Pinterest:  baggies, fake sand and seashells from Hobby Lobby and a cardstock surfboard and bag topper.  They came out pretty cute:

 

THE COOKIES



The day before her party, Cady and Colton helped me decorate surfboard sugar cookies we made the previous day using the new surfboard cookie cutter Colin ordered off of Ebay for me:

We loved how they turned out:

 

THE CAKE

Saturday morning I made and decorated her cake, using a plastic lei, brown sugar for the sand, some Barbie toys and a few surfboard cookies:

 

Cady was very pleased and even told me she thought it was the best cake I ever made her!

THE GUESTS

Also found on Pinterest, the kids helped me paint a cardboard shark for cute pics at the party.  It was a hit and I love the way the pictures turned out!


BFF Mckynze and Cady
 

Cady and good friend from school, Peyton

Cady and another good school friend, Gracie

As you can see, some did silly pictures, some did regular and some did both, like Janelle below, another school friend:

And Christa, a church friend:

 

Cady and good friend, Jack, the lone boy

Even the grandparents got in on the fun:


Cady and Daddy:

My sweet, silly girl and I:

Our good friends, the Hamricks and Giffings:

THE FOOD
The birthday girl requested hotdogs, which was fine because that was easy to do.  I also made pasta salad, ranch dip (for our veggies which were all from our garden except the carrots), fruit and fruit dip, and we had chips, crackers, salt water taffy, Swedish fist and gummy sharks. 

The Hamricks gave this beautiful frame to Cady at her 5th birthday and I always love using it at each of her parties:

THE FUN

CAKE AND PRESENTS IN THE DARK

The big kids (Colton, his buddy Devin, Jagger and Mckaela) were just a ways down from us at a church youth group picnic there at White Sands.  They joined our party in time to sing Happy Birthday and have cake.

 

Then it was more playing on the dunes until 11 pm when we had to load up and head home.

All the girls, except for Jenelle, spent the night at our house that night.  They were exhausted by the time we got to our house after midnight and slept until past 8 that morning.  They were a great group of girls, though - Cady is blessed with sweet friends!