Carys's Sixth Birthday : Moana Luau

Carys's sixth birthday took place the week before we left for Disney World, and it was definitely one of the better parties we've had! It took place at our house, and we invited a gaggle of little girls and their parents (who we also call friends). At least three kids cried when it was time to leave so I count that as a win (sorry parents). 

I'm going to be honest: I generally love planning and throwing parties (so much so that a friend and I have talked about doing party planning for others) but trying to plan this and Disney World at the same time - as well as getting Carys prepared to start kindergarten - about broke me. But I survived. Or at least, writing this a few weeks after the fact I can say I survived. But at the time I felt like my brain was broken.

I made the invitation using Canva.com.

The invite says it was a SURPRISE party, but....it was more of a "surprise" party. With quotes. She knew about the party, and WANTED to know about it...but also wanted to be surprised. So we pretended - with her full knowledge and participation - that we were planning for a "Christmas in July" Moana-themed party. What, you've never heard of a themed Christmas party? Well. Me either. But it was what Carys came up with to explain the decorations and plans. Honestly, it was fun to come up with explanations to tie everything in with the Christmas party cover story, and we enjoyed a "wink-wink-nod" conspiratorial tone throughout the entire planning process.

As we have in past years, we got most of the party supplies from Oriental Trading Company or Amazon, with a few dollar store goodies thrown in as well. Also as with past years, we split the cost of the decor with a friend who re-uses the decor and theme for her daughter's party in August, which helps us keep the costs WAY down. Hint: check the prices on both OTC and on Amazon. They often sell the same things and which site has the cheaper price varies.

When you arrived at the party, the first thing you saw was the "6" door hanging Carys and I made together by cutting out the shape of the number on foam board and hot-gluing green tropical leaf leis and flowers to it. I also hung paper fans and a floral garland from the light fixture in the entryway because why not.

sources: tropical leaf leis  |  hibiscus flowers  |  hibiscus paper fans  |  floral garland

I covered some of the existing pictures in the entryway with the tropical leaf paper and used gold glitter stickers to add "C" and "SIX" to them, and added Carys's picture to a few of the frames (over the pictures that are normally there). I tucked fake hibiscus flowers all over the place, too. Also, the grass table skirt totally set the mood and was one of my favorite parts of the decor.

I had big plans for the pineapples (on this table and on the dining room table). I was going to cut the top off one and hollow it out to make a vase and put flowers in it, and the other I was going to cut in half lengthwise and hollow it out to fill with pineapple salsa. Needless to say neither of those happened. So they're just...pineapples. There's not a single pineapple in Moana. So. Shrug.

sources: tropical leaf paper  |  hibiscus flowers  |  grass table skirt  |  Moana dress in picture  |   

flower headband in picture  |  flower anklet in picture

From the entryway, you can go left into the sitting room, where I didn't change much - I left it wide open for a surprise visit from a certain Polynesian princess. WUT WUT. I did decorate the mirror (you can't really see in the picture but there is a Beanie Baby pig and chicken in the little bowl thingy) and covered the bookcases full of Usborne books in order to act as a photo background.

sources: faux large leaves

How cute is Emmeline testing out the backdrop? I was worried the photo background wasn't quite high enough to make a good photo backdrop, so I blew up a bunch of yellow balloons and strung them together to make this...um, giant pile of balloons? What would you even call it? If I was a real blogger I'd have a name for it. This ELEGANT BALLOON SCULPTURE BOOKCASE TOPPER. I tucked a paper floral garland in it and a few fake leaves and popped it on top of the bookshelf to give it a bit more height. And dudes. THIS THING IS STILL THERE. The balloons will NOT deflate on their own and it's been 3+ weeks!! And I can't bring myself to pop them. #sentimentalfool

sources: paper floral garland  |  large faux leaves  |  small faux leaves  |  tropical print paper

Onto the dining room, which always gets the most decor.  I had ZERO idea what to do with this pineapple and popped it into the light fixture as a joke and HEY TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT IT. So yes, we had a chandelier pineapple. #fancy

sources: pineapple + flower garland are both from Target dollar aisle

Each kiddo got a hibiscus cup and straw to use during the party and then take home.

sources: tropical cups  |  hibiscus straws  |  paper flower garland

This table was so pretty before I cluttered it up with - ugh - food. WHY DO PEOPLE NEED TO EAT DON'T THEY SEE THEY'RE RUINING MY AESTHETIC. I got these gold, white, and brown letters from a daily steals site YEARS ago and I think I've used them at every birthday. I love them. I "tropical-ed" them up by adding green leaves and flowers to the end.

Then I had to add all that damn food and ruin the simplicity.  Carys also insisted on putting her Moana Lego sets throughout the table so that added to the clutter but WHO AM I TO SAY NO TO THE BIRTHDAY GIRL?

These wooden sporks peeking out of the lower edge are basically life. What, you want a full picture of them? Fine. I aim to please. 

DISCLOSURE: These are left over from Carys's 1st...yes, FIRST....birthday. I know. I've hung onto wooden sporks for five years now. WTF is wrong with me. I don't know the answer to that. And guess what? THERE ARE STILL SPORKS LEFT OVER.  I don't know what is wrong with people that they don't take as much joy in wooden sporks as I do. 

sources: grass table skirt  |  tropical leaf paper (used as tablecloth)  |  wooden sporks (similar)  |  

grass placemats left over from our mermaid party but available here

Along the other wall was the cake table. I love doing little themed photoshoots of the girls and printing out and displaying pictures from the shoot for the party. Then I force relatives to take them so I'm not left with 50 Carys-as-Moana pictures that I can't display but feel guilty throwing away.

sources: luau fortune cookies (the fortunes inside were awesome)  |  hibiscus suckers

The cake was the biggest disaster. I want to be clear: I am not a baker, nor am I a good cake decorator. And I know it. And this proved it. It took three attempts to get the cake out of the pan in one piece - apparently my cake pans are crazy scratched up and I need new ones. The cakes kept sticking and then falling apart as I tried to pry them out of the pan. I ended up FINALLY getting them to work at like 11pm at night by lining the pans with foil, and that worked out perfectly (and I stress-ate the other three crumbled cakes) (only half kidding).  Then I stacked and crumb-coated them before collapsing into bed and finishing the next day. The "sand" is ground-up graham crackers, the top layer is surrounded by Pirouette cookies, and the "ocean" is just frosting in various shades of blue.

However, after the disaster and three destroyed cakes, I told Chris I'm never spending the time to make a cake again (plus I'll never top the sun cake from Em's second birthday) but realistically I'll be doing this again in six months for Emmeline's fourth birthday (wut, sob) because I'm too cheap to buy a cake.

 

Carys and I painted the kakamora coconuts and it was one of my favorite parts of the party decor. I used a knife to scrape off some of the "hairy" parts of the shell in the shape of the kakamora face, then used sandpaper to sand it smooth. We used chalk to sketch the face shapes and filled in the colors with acrylic paints. Carys did two and I did two, and I honestly think she did such a good job I can barely tell the difference between ours! (Mine are the one in the entryway and the top one above; hers are the bottom one above and the one below.)

These jello roll-ups were SO easy and SO good! I found them on Pinterest - not associated with Moana in any way - and thought they'd make perfect "Heart of Te Fiti" snacks. They're a cinch to make!

This is what we served for ice cream - this sorbet IN FRUIT SHELLS. OMG. So cute. AND SO DELISH. I got them from Costco! I could totally eat the entire box by myself and just posting this is making me contemplate going to get another box, but not telling my family and sneaking one every night before bed.

Through the dining room, you head into the kitchen, which didn't receive much in the way of decorations. I just realized I have zero pictures of it - blogger AND mom fail - but the island in the middle of the kitchen also got a grass table skirt and there were meatballs/Lil' Smokies with hibiscus-topped toothpicks.

sources: Moana cups  |  pineapple bucket + straws from Target Dollar Aisle

I made frozen fruit lemonade (just regular lemonade with a bag of frozen fruit dumped into it - SO GOOD) and Te Fiti juice. The Te Fiti juice was going to be Ocean Water, except I mixed blue punch and pineapple juice and totally forgot that blue + yellow = green. So my ocean water became Te Fiti juice and I'm just going to pretend that it was totally planned. If you're trying to replicate it at home, it was equal parts Sprite + blue punch and then a couple cups of pineapple juice (the pineapple juice is pretty strong so you don't need a ton of it).

I LOVED these gold foil tattoos, which we scattered on the kitchen table in sort of a tattoo station. They were actually my second choice - my first choice of glitter hibiscus tattoos were sold out (these other hibiscus/luau ones are super cute too) - but once I saw them on kids (and on myself BECAUSE GOLD FOIL, HELLO) I loved them. Can you get an actual gold foil tattoo? Because I would be all over that.

source: gold foil tattoos

The only other thing in the dining room was a floral garland along the top of the French doors and the sliding doors. 

source: floral garland

From the kitchen, we move to the family room/living room. Which turned out SO WELL. Like probably contained my favorite decor from any party, ever.

This is looking to the living room from the entryway. FLORAL GARLANDS EVERYWHERE.

source: floral paper garland

sources: large faux leaves  |  small faux leaves  |  long floral garland (seriously it's like 100 feet)  |

hibiscus paper fans  |  tropical floral paper

For the display over the mantle, I covered the picture that was normally there in tropical-patterned paper and put the hibiscus paper fans on top of it, and topped that with a "6" balloon that we got from the Target dollar aisle. I'm going to be honest: I thought that balloon was going to be a LOT bigger. Whoops/fail/oh well. SHOULDA READ THE PACKAGING I guess. We already had the Moana dolls from Christmas and I tucked a couple of tropical leaf leis and hibiscus flowers around the dolls' feet on either side of the main display.

The age progression banner I made with a burlap banner we already have and these free printables. I printed the water bottle labels on regular paper for the top stripe, and added numbers to the party circles with Photoshop.

Lastly, I put a table in the sunroom with some activities - coloring sheets and some ocean animal scratch-offs. Total waste because we had basically zero time to do these. A couple girls colored and did scratch-offs while waiting for Carys to arrive but for the most part, all of this was untouched.

Each kiddo got a bag and a Moana plush keychain, which I found at Dollar Tree. We used puff paint to put the child's name on the front of the bag and filled it with a beach ball, tattoos, stickers, a stone Heart of Te Fiti (just green stone vase fillers painted with a swirl), a lei, and a flower clip. As they arrived, we handed out the bags and encouraged them to wear the lei and put the flower clip in their hair. They each also took home a tropical-print cup and flower straw.

ONTO PICS FROM THE ACTUAL PARTY! AKA the part you'll skip if you're just reading this for party inspiration. AKA the only part you care about if you're just looking for pictures of Carys enjoying her party.

Everyone waiting for Carys to arrive so we can surprise her....

And even though she knew it was coming and it was exactly what she'd requested, she immediately broke into a huge smile...AND RAN INTO THE OTHER ROOM TO HIDE. Ha! 

 

The kiddos ran around and played for about 30 minutes, and then came the best part and the one thing I was most excited about: the surprise appearance of MOANA! I found a local company - Hero and Princess Parties - and arranged for Moana to come to the party. Carys had NO idea this was happening and she was just in complete awe the entire time (all the kids were!). She arrived with a gift - stuffed Pua! - for Carys and led the kids in a craft, singing two songs, learning a dance, and reading a book! Isn't she seriously gorgeous and perfect? Honestly, I think she might be the real Moana.

Flower crown activity in the sunroom....

Singing songs...

The girls were split into two camps: those who were a bit awestruck and hung back, and those who sat two inches in front of Moana and invaded her personal space the entire time (AKA Carys).

Guys, she had such an amazing voice. I had actual literal tears in my eyes.

Followed by learning a dance...

After that, each girl got their picture taken with Moana and a signed picture. 

Just look at that family picture...GOOD THING I MADE THAT BALLOON THINGY RIGHT. If I hadn't, you'd be able to see - gasp - the wall behind it and you'd all be judging me SO HARD right now, I know.

We still had a bit of time before she had to head back to Motunui, so she read the girls a book. You can see how all of the girls have started to warm up to her and crowd around her by now.

Then we blew out the candles and sang happy birthday (led by Moana)...

The girls did NOT want Moana to leave, but we bribed them with the promise of presents and cake.

I'm going to be really honest yet again and kind of forgot that the kids would want to eat cake and ice cream and probably sit down while doing so. And I didn't think about any kind of seating for them. So they ate on the floor. But they're like flexible little kids without all the aches and pains of adulthood so it's fine, right? #badhostess

After cake and ice cream, everyone changed into swimsuits for pool and sprinkler time. Much like the unused coloring sheets, this was a totally unnecessary part of the party. I was thinking Moana for an hour and then pool party for an hour but I forgot about the whole present-opening and cake-eating parts. So I sincerely apologize to all of the parents who were ready to go but their kids wanted to swim. I am good at party planning but bad at timelines apparently.

I'll close with the funniest part: one of the moms noticed the Moana autographs were spelled MAONA. After laughing about it for a bit (how could she not know?!?) we found that it was purposeful, to avoid the copyright (i.e. she's not MOANA, she's a POLYNESIAN PRINCESS). After learning that, we realized how brilliant they really are - look at how similarly she formed the A and the O in the signature!

This was definitely one of my favorite parties - my other being the camping party, I think (mostly because I think that was such a fun theme). She's planning on Star Wars for her 7th birthday and Harry Potter for her 8th - and I'm not going to lie, I'm TOTALLY on board with those themes - but I'm sure it will change. 

Happy birthday, Care-bear!