How to Plan a Beach-Themed Birthday Party

Aidyn's birthday party was today, and even though today was also the first day of fall, he really wanted to have a beach-themed party. So, with fingers crossed for good weather, we planned an "End of Summer Beach Bash." And as luck would have it, the weather was perfect for a beach themed party on the first day of fall! The kids were able to have one more day of summer fun.

The menu:

• Sun Chips (individual bags from Costco)
• Goldfish crackers (individual bags from Costco)
• cupcakes with gummy turtles on top
• saltwater taffy (find a store at a beach near you and buy up all of the saltwater taffy and sea-life shaped candy! If you're not near a beach, Swedish Fish candy will work just fine!)
• gummy whales
• gummy sharks
• fruit-flavored fish candy
• blue M&Ms (for a good resource for color specific candy, see our Pinterest Kids Party Ideas board)
• madelines (shell shaped cookies from Costco)

For beverages, we served Sunny D, Hawaiian Punch, and lemonade for the kids; sodas for the adults.

Games to "wear the kids out":

• Pinata
• Limbo (and the kids were surprisingly good at this!)
• Beach Relay (The kids were divided into two teams. Each team got a bag of identical beach gear - floaties, goggles, lei, beach towel, and pool noodle. They had to put on the beach gear, run a course, and then switch the gear to the next person.)
• Sand Pail Fill (the kids were divided into two teams and had to take turns filling an empty sand pail one shovel-full at a time with sand from another pail that was placed about 10 feet away).

The kids collected their goodies in sand pails that I found at the dollar section at Target.

We decorated with fish nets and starfish over the tablecloths and shell necklaces linked together to make garland. The fish nets and starfish are available at Oriental Trading Company. We had collected shell necklaces from trips to Hawaii and thought this was a good time to use them.

The Beach Bash was a success and we hope that you can use some of these ideas for your own beach-themed birthday party.