Flamingo Birthday Party

We finally had our flamingo birthday party!! Hazel is now officially five! It was a blast even though she now has her second ear infection since Christmas and is on her second round of antibiotics. Yes, it has been a tough Christmas break. But onto our happy time! A few weeks ago, I shared our printed invitation as well as some of the terrific products we reviewed from Oriental Trading.

Oriental Trading Products

I made a photo spot by hanging some sparkly pink curtains (over plastic pink shower curtains) over our book shelves and then had the large inflatable flamingo in front of it. Unfortunately our electronic air pump broke, so Steve used a very small bicycle pump and his lungs to inflate the big thing. The flamingo lives in Hazel's room now.

Our Photo Spot

Hazel saw the sparkly flamingo glasses at the party store and insisted I buy her a pair. She wanted to switch back and forth with the ones from Oriental Trading. A few of us adults tried the Oriental Trading ones on for pictures too. They were a bit small though.

The pinata was filled with toys and the perfect size for our party. The kids had a blast getting the toys and there was enough for everyone. We also had a fun contest for adults and children--Standing on One Leg Contest. We called it a tie when there were two left (a child and an adult) and gave each a prize. (I had found three flamingo battery operated candles on clearance at Pier One Imports in September and used two for prizes (all three for decorations).)

We used the flamingo pops for the cake. I made a strawberry cake at Hazel's request since she wanted it to be pink. I used this recipe (the same as last year), but added  red food coloring to get it really pink inside. I also found a can of blue birthday frosting and used it so I wouldn't have to try to get the aqua blue color. It was one of the easier birthday cakes I made. Hazel also won an ice cream cake from a local radio station. We had that one on her actual birthday.

For crafts we had the bags and we had some pink clay, feathers and pipe cleaners for people to make their own flamingos. Some of the older kids made the clay ones or at least played around with it, but no one did the bags. Oh, well, more for us to have fun with! We also had some books from the library and a movie in case we needed another activity, but we did not use any of them. Each of the books, I have reviewed previously: Fish and Flamingo, Flora and the Flamingo,  Sylvie, Marco Flamingo. I have not reviewed the Disney Nature film, The Crimson Wing yet. Sorry!

We used some of the decorations we made including the ping pong ball flamingos we made. I also bought some bright pink roses and decided they needed some feathers and heads. I used pipe cleaners to make the beaks, heads and hold the feathers to the roses.

I also had found some lighted flamingo decorations on clearance for something like a quarter each, plus someone at church loaned us a string of flamingo lights. It made it so decorative for our theme.

Another activity I had hoped to prepare was our trial at how flamingos eat. Had the party been outside, I probably would have done this. With being inside and the mess potential, I decided not to do it.

Votive Holders from Shin Digz

We also used the decorations from our review from Shin Digz. Everyone was surprised to see all the pink flamingo things I had found.

Items from Shin Digz

Next week I will share the food we had for our flamingo party and how it relates to the flamingo theme! Hope you will join us then and for Sharing Saturday tomorrow!