Splash Party -2yr- Backyard Water Games

For my daughter's 2nd birthday I had a splash party.  We used the little Mermaid Theme and played the music throughout.

Invitations were sent out on a flip flop in a plastic sandwich bag filled with a little sand and shells (Party information was written on the flip flop)  We had the party outside in my yard (Aug. Birthday)   I had an above ground pool for the children to swim, had stations set up all over the yard manned or "womanned" by the adult parents. 

I had a bubble station: plastic flat storage container filled with bubble solution and various "wands" such as fly swatters, coat hangers twisted to form large circles, conventional wands purchased at store.

There was a duck "pond": large tub filled with water and duckies with numbers. Everyone won a prize. 

A water gun station: buckets with filled water guns to have battles with, Sidewalk chalk station: for those who tired of swimming and needed a break from water games to draw. 

My husband manned the most popular station "The Sponge Throw": All the children had an opportunity to sling wet sponges at my husband as he stood with his head in a whole in a cardboard sheet that we had painted a mermaid figure. We also took pictures of the children with their heads in the whole with an instamatic camera and they took home the picture as a memorabilia of the party.

We had a slip and slide station where the kids ran and slide down the plastic strip (premade slip and slide purchased from store 19.99) I "soaped" my slide on my regular swing set with dish soap which made it go extremely fast and the kids enjoyed the bubbles not to mention it really cleaned the slide!!

The last station was a tye dye shirt station where we tye dyed shirts a deep ocean blue and hung them on my cloths line to dry as we ate cake and opened presents.(shirts were purchase in packs in boy's section of Wal-Mart 4.99 for a three pack.)

We had a mermaid cake, ocean punch (blue) and each child left the party with a real goldfish in plastic fishbowls that we wrote on with scribble paints.  We wrote the name of each fish on the outside of the bowl and used the names from the Little Mermaid: Ariel, Scuttle, Sabastian, Triten, Ersala etc. Bowls were 1.00 a piece at Wal-Mart and fish were 4 for 1.00. 

We served fish crackers, and decorated with sea shells and paper fish my daughter helped me make which we hung on string all over the yard (from trees on clothes line). It was a great party and was good for the range of ages as they each rotated to the stations they like and participated on their age level.  Each child left the party with a named fish in a bowl with one weeks supply of food for the fish in a bag and a picture of themselves as a mermaid or merman! Great party!!