Sophia's Tea Under the Sea Birthday Party

Last December, Sophia announced that she wanted a red velvet mermaid cake. And that kid does NOT change her mind!

Also, mermaid = Ariel, much to my dismay, since I am not a huge fan of character birthday party themes. But I did my best with it. The cake was red velvet with blue buttercream icing. I made the seashells from white chocolate in candy molds from Hobby Lobby. The fish are Swedish Fish candy, and the bubbles are small white dragees. The sand is graham cracker crumbs.

We had a "tea under the sea" and decorated the living room like the ocean by hanging blue streamers and balloons and tissue paper fish from the ceiling.

We turned a fan on low so the tissue paper moved like waves.

Davis made a little table for them out of plywood, and the girls had a tea party with tea sandwiches, strawberries, whipped cream, Goldfish crackers, and of course tea with sugar or honey and cream. The decorations were seashells, sand dollars, starfish, little glass fish, and glass beads - at the end of the party, the girls got little bags and could fill them up with treasures from the table as party favors.







The other favors were these little horns made out of sea shells (you can see one in front of Amelia in the picture above) and the cutest little sparkly fishy hairbows from this Etsy seller.

The girls played fish ring toss.

Sophia's friends are so, so sweet - I love these girls!





She got some fabulous gifts.





And I have some pretty sweet friends too - they grabbed the camera from me and took over photography duties and writing down gifts, so I got to sit and enjoy watching Sophia open gifts AND there is actually a picture of ME at my own child's birthday party!



And then Sophia got The Gift. She has been begging for an American Girl doll for months, and she picked Elizabeth from the catalog. I wasn't sure whether she really wanted her that badly, or if it was just peer pressure since all of her friends have one. But no - she started kissing the box and jumping up and down and saying "thank you! thank you! thank you!" and then "I'm never letting her go!" so I think she really did want her that badly!



And she's right - she hasn't let her go. Elizabeth slept with her both nights, went to church and lunch with us yesterday, and today she's at her friend Rilan's house having a playdate with Sophia.

Of course as soon as she came out of the box, Sophia's friends started telling her all the things you can do and buy at the American Girl STORE. Apparently you can get their ears pierced there, so Sophia started begging me to go there to get Elizabeth's ear pierced. I told her that when she's eight, I will take her and her best friend to Dallas and they can get their dolls' ears pierced AND their own ears pierced. She loved that idea. Phew!

At the end of the party, Davis said "well that was fun!" and then he took a deep breath and said "it was just a LOT of girls!" Ha ha! I told him we have two daughters, he better get used to it.

Today is Sophia's actual birthday - I can't believe my little girl is FIVE years old! She has changed so much this year, and really become a little lady. We love her so much!!