Noah's Fish-Themed Second Birthday

*Please scroll to the bottom of the post if you are interested in purchasing fish-themed party printables! *

Now that I've updated you about Noah's 2nd year, it's time to talk about the party!! When I asked Noah what he wanted for his birthday party this year, he didn't give me an answer (surprise!), so I started suggesting different themes, and I kept hearing emphatic "no's!" So, we went through lots of different ideas, and finally when reading one of his favorite bedtime stories, The Very Silly Shark, that night, I asked him if he wanted "fish," and he gave me a very enthusiastic "yes!" So, away I went planning an adorable aqua and orange fish-themed party for my little guy. First on the agenda, the invitations. I love including photos on my birthday invitations, so I found a way to incorporate 3 photos from our most recent photography session in the spring into this double-sided invite! :)

I was so happy with how they turned out!

After the invitations were mailed, I started brainstorming ideas for the party. To decorate the house, I bought some "Caribbean" and "Orange Peel" latex balloons (inflated with helium and hi-float) at the local party supply store, Party City. I also made a custom banner that read "Happy 2nd Birthday Noah" using the same fish/color theme.

Here's an example of the banner letters, close-up. I purchased some aqua and white bakers twine from Spiral Sage on Etsy to string together the circles. It worked and looked great!

For the party favors, I bought a box of the small bubble wands and aqua and orange ribbon from Michaels (bubbles located in the wedding section) and added coordinating thank-you tags (reading "Thanks for swimming by!") to them. I also thought that the kids would appreciate a snack bag of Goldfish, so I packaged those in clear, plastic bags and topped them with personalized tags (reading "Noah o-FISH-ally thanks you for attending!"), too. The aqua and orange buckets with the "2" on them, that held the favors, were also purchased at Michaels, on clearance! :)

Instead of making a big cake, I decided to make cupcakes and cake pops for the party. I didn't want to attempt any elaborate decorating of the cupcakes on the day of the party, so I made cupcake toppers (coordinating with the banner) to stick in the simple aqua-frosted, vanilla cupcakes that I baked that morning (thanks to my mom and sister for helping get them decorated!). I purchased the orange and white polka-dotted cupcake liners from Spiral Sage. All of the "Caribbean blue" and "Orange" plates, napkins, utensils and tablecloths were purchased at Party City.

I was able to make the cake pops the day before the party and keep them in the refrigerator. It had been almost 2 years since the last time I had made them, so I was a little rusty. I was having trouble getting the candy melts to thin properly, so the cake pops were not as pretty as I hoped they would be. What they lacked in appearance though, they made up for in flavor. ;) I used white cake mix, homemade buttercream frosting, and Wilton's candy melts for the cake pops. You can find the recipe/technique here and here. I used a double boiler technique for melting the candy melts, but perhaps microwaving would have worked better this time.

I found a recipe for a blue punch here. I used a one-gallon container of Hawaiian Punch Berry Blue and a two-liter bottle of Country Time Lemonade. The flavor was pretty decent, but I thought that Sprite would add that needed fizz, so I added about 3/4 of a two-liter bottle of that, too. The color was great! For those who didn't want punch, I also provided water, flavored with orange and lemon slices. I bought the cute, 3-gallon drink dispensers at Walmart. The ice core did a great job keeping the beverages cool for the duration of the party! The adorable aqua- and orange-striped paper straws, and the orange and white bakers twine (holding all of the tags on) were purchased from Spiral Sage also.

For the dinner menu, I chose:

• Grilled hamburgers and hot dogs
• Chips
• Crabmeat appetizers (a mixture of crabmeat, butter, Old English cheese, worcestershire sauce, minced onions, and salt on English muffins)
• Pasta salad (I used tricolor rotini, mini pepperoni, shredded parmesan cheese, and Zesty Italian salad dressing)
• Shrimp cocktail
• Assorted fruit and marshmallow dip (1 large jar of marshmallow fluff, 1 8-oz block of cream cheese, 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon)
• Jell-O Cups with Swedish Fish (5 oz plastic tumblers from Party City)

I wanted some of the food to go with the party theme, which is why I chose the crabmeat appetizers, shrimp cocktail, and Jell-O cups. The crabmeat appetizers are always a hit whenever I make them, so I'll have to get the entire recipe posted soon. Thanks to my mom, dad, and sister for helping me get all of the food ready!

Here are some pics of the birthday boy enjoying his day!! :) His crab outfit (how lucky I was to find it in coordinating colors!) was purchased on clearance at Gymboree.

I'm having trouble getting my video to load directly to this post, so please visit this link to our YouTube channel to watch the birthday boy blow out his candles! :)

Now it's time to get the thank-you's written. I decided to go with postcards this year, so I designed a 4" x 6" double-sided card for this.

Happy 2nd Birthday to our tiny man!

All items you see above are available for customization and purchase through my business page, kreations by kristy. You can also find me on Facebook and Etsy.