Fun In The Sun 10yr - Water Balloon Toss

For my daughter's 10th birthday, we had a Fun in the Sun"/Pool Party.  It was a LOT of fun!  

INVITATIONS:  I made an invitation using MS Publisher that said "Join me for a "Sun"sational party!"  Then gave details.  We had a pool party so I directed everyone to bring flip flops/towels/sunscreen/etc.  

DECORATIONS:  We decorated in bright pinks greens yellow purple and orange.  We had lots of ballons streamers and ribbons of these colors hung.  I'll try to keep this brief but relevant!  :)  

FOOD (since we didn't do dinner just snacks):  Fruit skewers stuck into a honeydew melon SunChips (fun in the Sun!) and cheetohs and then of course a cake (more later on that).  For drinks we had sprite orange soda and pink lemonade.  If they wanted the girls could have tropical fruit juice ice cubes in their drink to cool it down.  That was fun because it added flavor to the sprite or whatever soda the girls had.  

GAMES:  We had LOTS of fun games planned.  1)  Sponge relay - 2 teams of 5 girls each each team had a big car wash sponge.  They saturated the sponge in a big tub of water then raced 20 feet or so to fill up a bucket.  The team who filled the bucket to the designated line first won.  The girls LOVED this one. 

Game 2)  Water balloon volleyball - each team of 5 had one sheet.  The girls pulled the sheet taut and the goal was to toss a small water balloon over a tennis net and the other team had to catch it.  This was tricky and the girls had to practice coordinating their throws. 

Game 3) Water Balloon Toss -  2 girls stood 5 feet from each other tossed a balloon and then if they caught the balloon each girl took one step back.  Last team with an intact balloon won. 

From there we went into Game 4)  Water Balloon FIGHT!!  :)  We had about 100 waterballoons filled and they were gone in less than 5 minutes but the girls LOVED it. 

Game 5) Super Soaker Freeze Tag.  We had 2-3 girls with super soakers and if the other girls were "tagged" with water they had to freeze.  The girls really liked this one as well.

ACTIVITY:  For a fun craft the girls made "Hydro Bracelets"  I found this idea on the Family Fun Website (along with some of the above games).  3/8" clear tubing is filled with some small beads.  Add water and then with a smaller size tube you connect it to make a bracelet.  I know my description is not that great but check Family Fun!  It will make more sense.  :)   The girls also had their toenails painted a bright pink color.   

FAVOR: For a favor at the end of the party I made the CUTEST beach bags (if I say so myself! :)  )  Again the idea is from Family Fun.  You take a white garbage bag cut it down one side and the bottom to make it flat.  I had a 18 x 30 inch rectangle template and I traced it onto the bag.  Then using alternating colors of duct tape (Pink purple and white) I covered my rectangle.  Cut the rectangle out fold in half tape sides together and make a handle with rope.  Again in attempts to be brief I know this probably doesn't make sense.  But if you check the Family Fun website (duct tape beach bag) it will make lots of sense!)  

CAKE:  I baked a 14" round cake and frosted it with orange and  yellow frosting (I am going to post a picture on coolest birthday cakes.com when it is accepting submissions again).  By alternating the frosting it gave the cake an almost airbrushed look.  Then I piped some sunglasses on and a smile and at the bottom wrote "Happy Birthday!"  In between cake games snacks craft the girls also just played in the pool.  The last thing we did was to take pictures.  The art teacher at my daughter's elementary school had painted two large cardboard pieces.  One had a tiger shark and the other a mermaid and "Johnny Depp"  a la Jack Sparrow.  The faces were cut out on the mermaid and Jack and on the shark a hole was cut in the mouth so the kids could put their head in that.  Those pictures were pretty cute.   Overall it was a super fun party all the girls loved it and we had a blast.  Thanks to this awesome site and to family fun for some great ideas!  Hope if you do something along these lines some of these ideas might be of help.  :)"