Mckinley’s Hawaian/Aloha Dance Pool 10th Birthday Party

Mckinley asked for a Aloha themed birthday party with Gold pineapples and pink Flamingos. I throw a big themed birthday party for my daughter every year. It’s a great bonding experience, we brainstorm and also make everything together. The kids always love it and I get to fulfill my passion. We get a lot of ideas from Pinterest and Google Images. This year, we went to Party City and saw a really pretty napkin and we built the entire party around it. The napkin was our inspiration for the party. I purchased real pineapples at Aldi’s (cheapest I could fine) and bought some gold chrome spray (Walmart had best prices). I sprayed all the pineapples Gold. I cut the tops off two of them and put colorful flower arrangements (purchased at a local farm stand here on Long Island) in them. I bought most of the paper goods at Party City. Balloons all came from Amazon and a local party store. The balloon arch I made myself, I purchased a 25 foot “balloon arch strip” from Party City and cut it down to the length I wanted for the dessert table. I only wanted to buy regular sized balloons to save money so some we just blew up more then others. My daughter helped with the balloons. Using the balloon arch strip was simple and I used glue dots to stick each balloon to each other and close up gaps. I pulled apart a cheap leaf lei and added that as well as some plastic dollar store flowers. The chrome gold balloons really made it special. I decorated the dessert table with a pink table cloth I had from another party and then I found a cute piece of coral leaf see through material at the fabric store and used it to lay over the table cloth.

• What People Ate

  The kids ate “Tacos in a bag”. We set up a taco bar. The kids got to choose a bag of Doritos or Fritos, then crushed their chips in their bag and added all their toppings. They had a choice of turkey or chopped meat. We also had a watermelon filled with chunks of watermelon and pineapple. A veggie platter with carrots, celery, cucumbers and ranch. Adults ate American, Italian and Chicken Cutlet heros and homemade German potato salad (compliments of my mother-in-law, amazing!). We also had chips and dips.

• What People Drank

  My daughter decided this year for her “party entertainment” (always her birthday gift from one of her grandmothers) that she wanted a smoothie bar. So we hired a company called Maui Wowi, they set up a tiki bar and served all the kids various tropical smoothies. The kids loved it and adults did as well). We also served a summer punch made up of all different fruit juices, flavored seltzers and some 7-up. The kids loved this and it was super easy to make. A little of this and a little of that, I picked up most of it at Costco and also made the same drink for adults but added rum. Yummy!

• Desserts

  Two layer birthday cake with cookies and cream buttercream between each layer and done in tropical colors inside. We had a local baker bake the cake and dirty ice it for us. I added the fondant and wrapped the cake in a leaf print sugar wrap (which I designed with clip art I purchased on Etsy, then had someone print and ship me), handmade hibiscus sugar flowers (also purchased from Etsy) and a cake topper I bought on Amazon. I added a lawn orniment plastic flamingo and some plastic palm leaves I had. We also made chocolate covered birthday cake Oreos, Rice Krispie Treats, Chocolate covered pretzels. I bought my daughter’s favorite French macarons from our local candy store and spray painted them with edible gold glitter spray and stuck sugar Flamingos and pineapples on them (which I luckily found at Party City). I purchased tropical/aloha themed mini cookies from Etsy, which she made off a picture I sent her, they came out adorable!). The dessert table also had almond Hershey kisses wrapped in gold with little flamingo and aloha and pineapple stickers on the bottom (also purchased from Amazon), tropical flavored salt water taffy’s, and som flamingo gummies (which I found on EBay). We also purchased Rochers chocolates and glued mini pineapple glitter tops (Also Etsy), glued them to tooth picks and stuck them in the top of the gold Rochers and made them look like mini pineapples.

• Party Favors

  I found someone local to make me yellow candy apples. They were supposed to be bright glossy yellow but came out almost amber. No time to get upset, we made it work! I purchased some glitter green pineapple toppers and glue gunned them to the Apple sticks to make the whole apple look like a pineapple. Then cut the tops of the plastic wrap and tied with brown string and a tag. I purchased all my party printables (including these tags), from an artist on Etsy and we printed everything ourselves. I buy inexpensive ink on Amazon and always keep cardstock on hand.

• Activities / Games

  My daughter wanted a dance party. She wanted teams and each team got a pair of speakers and an electronic device. The boys decided to stay in the pool and not participate. I don’t blame them. The girls had 45 mins to get with their teams and come up with a dance routine. Each adult received a ballot to vote on which team they liked best. One team was the winner and each team member got to pick a prize from our prize bag. We also had a balloon popping competion when the kids first arrived. We blew up hundreds of colorful balloons and filled the pool. Inside 10 balloons were a $1 bill, one in each. Then a few other balloons had a plastic hibiscus flower in it. The kids couldn’t see if a balloon had something in it or not. When we counted 3, they all jumped in the pool, had to grab one balloon, get out and sit and pop it. If they got a balloon with a dollar bill, they got to keep it. If they found a hibiscus flower, they won a prize from the prize bag. It was super fun, great party ice breaker! Note to self...don’t emptry the balloons into the pool with the sun shinning on them until right before the game is going to start. We had them in there from the morning and all morning before the party they were popping, one by one but we lost at least half. The third game we played was called “You make it”. Kids got into teams of 5 and the adult calls out a number, letter or object, and the team has to try and make it with their bodies. It was fun! We also had a tropical photo booth with Aloha props. I purchased the props on Amazon. I commissioned my husband to make the frame out of cardboard boxes I had in the garage. I covered the frame in dollar store brown paper. Then took plastic palm leaves I got on amazon and some dollar store plastic flowers and glue gunned them to the corners. It came out cute and was super easy.

• Lisa

  Friend

  Lisa is a great friend. She came over a few times during the week before the party and helped me prep some of the party details.