An Octonaut Party

If you are unfamiliar with Octonauts let me share a bit of information so you too can enjoy the thrill that is Octonauts. The Octonauts are undersea explorers that live in an undersea exploration station. they travel through the ocean in smaller boats and submersibles called "Gups". The crew is made up of a polar bear, cat, penguin, dog,  rabbit, sea otter, and octopus.  Each episode focuses on one sea creature that the Octonauts interact with for one reason or another. It makes very little sense to me, but Michael LOVES it, and he has learned quite a bit about "under the sea" in the process. 

So when he decided he wanted to have a birthday party he KNEW that it had to be an Octonaut party. I tried to discourage it, but eventually I gave in. We knew we wanted to have the party in our back yard (don't worry we don't have that same plan next year) and that we would need to do it LONG before his actual birthday and the heat was unbearable. So here's the party, it was the first kid party I've ever thrown (ok the first party period, so there was lots of blunders but I think overall he enjoyed it. 

So a couple of things. Michael decided he wanted to invite about 15 kids... and wouldn't know know it they were pretty much all available. This was a little bit chaotic and overwhelming but I think the kids had a great time. With that many kids I'm glad it was entirely outside. 

The party favors... I love them but I'm not sure the kids will, they also were time consuming at best so yeah.

We had quite a few activities. We tried to keep it low key enough for the kids to play and have fun. We had a pin the eye patch on Kwazi, and under the sea bean bag toss, the Gup-b, a water sensory bin, water balloons, cookie decorating, and digging for buried treasure in the sand. Oh and the playhouse which the kids thought was the best part. The idea was that we would have all these activities set up and the kids could pick whatever they wanted. Basically it was chaos but with planned activities. We did do the pin the eye patch on Kwazi game as a group and the water balloons at the same time but beyond that they just ran around. I thought about trying to get the kids to participate in an orderly fashion but remembered what it is like trying to get my two kids to do anything together so I ditched that idea pretty quick (like weeks before the party). 

Michael insisted we have Octonauts symbol so I painted one, I will be sticking to my real talents from now on. I also made these paper banners. I'm sure they could have been purchased but as each one was maybe $1 to make I stuck with the homemade version. 

 Michael selected the food. And to be honest very little of it got eaten. it might have been the time of day that we had the party, or the heat, or maybe the kids didn't like the options.

We had Ocean Fruit (fruit), Shark Teeth (cheese cut into triangles and other shapes), Jello Oceans (blue Jello with a swedish fish inside and an octopus on top, these were gross but Michael wanted them so bad), coral sticks (veggie straws), and a variety of crackers. Not too much but it was after lunch and before dinner and like I said the kids were too busy or hot to care. 

We tried to keep the decorations pretty simple (well they looked that way at least). I made a few paper banners in Octonauts colors, I cut out a LOT of fish using my silhouette and taped them everywhere, we added a few green streamers (kelp), and a few amateur Octonauts illustrations, and these jellyfish. I saw the jellyfish on pinterest and had to do them. They looked much better in person than in this photo. and Brian did an excellent job mowing and edging so our yard looked great. 

Schools of fish swimming along the fence. The kelp and other fish were on the house (turns out tape sticks better to brick than fences). 

So for the activities, well there were a few.

Michael loves cookie decorating so we got a few types of sprinkles and sea shaped candy and made and frosted sugar cookies. These are my favorite sugar cookies... and my neighbor let us borrow her sea shaped cookie cutters (awesome). 

We had all the ingredients out and the kids helped themselves as wanted. 

 Michael wasnt thrilled I made colored frosting for the cookies but the other kids seemed totally cool with it. The idea was that the kids would decorate their cookies and then take them home, that happened for... no one, they were just too delicious and had to be eaten immediately. I mean come on, who doesn't want to eat a cookie with 10 swedish fish stacked on it and as many sprinkles and m&ms as the frosting will let you pack on.

We had a water sensory bin. We put a bit of sand in a box, added water, gems, and fish and the kids were thrilled. They used tongs and little nets to get the stuff out and I told them they could keep whatever they found. It did help that this is Texas in june and it was a good 90 degrees with humidity.

 We set up the little tent over the sandbox to help with the heat. It was still really really hot, but slightly shaded. Despite what this photo shows it was not a cloudy and shady day. I didn't get a picture of the sandbox, but I filled the boys crab shaped sandbox with treasures (little glass "gems" and sea shells) and set out a bunch of sand toys. I told them to dig for treasures and that they could keep whatever they found. One of Michael's buddies took this seriously and had two pockets full of shells.

 The playhouse was a favorite activity. When we got it Michael named it the Octopod and we put the symbol on the door. We also installed a steering wheel and telescope, our kids love it and so do their friends. It turns out you can put quite a few kids in this tiny playhouse.

 Michael insisted we make him this bean bag toss. I think it turned out so cute but I'm not sure it was worth the effort. Michael and Zach love to play it home and a few of his friends had a good time trying to get it through the shark.

 We made a Gup-b. The Gup- b is Michael's favorite Octonaut boat. I almost didn't do it, and you can tell that it was the very last project. I meant to attach the fins and fix the eyes and mouth, never happened. But they loved it. Michael kept saying "let's paddle to the desert!"

Michael doesn't really like cake, and by doesn't really I mean doesn't at all, so I thought we would eat cookies as the treat (you know some like the ones like we made for the decorating) but he said no. Instead he wanted ice cream and popsicles. After being outside yesterday I have to say he was on to something. We had a few different types of popsicles, ice cream cones, and klondike bars for the parents. 

 We had some favor bags. I had planned to get something cool, but then ran out of time. So we went with this option. Slightly ghetto but did the trick. We put a bag of Shark snacks and a fishing game for the big kids, and a wind up water toy and a bag of fish snacks for the little kids. I had more ambitious plans but this was good. The kids also filled the bags with the treasures they collected.

So this seemed simple enough. It was adorable and I think the kids will like it. But I forgot that these involved sewing, cutting, drilling, and a trip or two to Home Depot. Yeah... 

All in all I like how it turned out, but next year he gets to invite 5 kids and we are going to the pool and eating popsicles.