We had an indoor pool party this Sunday (Jan 26) with a little mermaid/under the sea theme. Everyone got to the pool between 1 and 1:15, the swim started at 1:15 and went to 2:15. Then, we had the second hour in the craft room (2:30 - 3:30). I had created a mix CD of little mermaid soundtrack music and other dancing music (mostly wiggles) that related to the theme - i.e. pirate dancing by the wiggles. The dance music was playing as the kids arrived after changing from the pool. They danced and snacked while I got the remainder of the food prepared and while we waited for my daughter to arrive with dh ... she got to wear the most frilly dress you ever did see and got ooo's and ahhhh's as she entered the room (pic's to follow). The kids were really hungry after swimming for an hour so we had food right away ... cheese or jam sandwiches for the kids, bits & bites, fish crackers, raisins, pop and juice. I also bought some party sandwiches (tuna, egg, salmon, etc.) for the adults. After they ate their sandwiches, we sang happy birthday and served the cake ... kids and parents all got a piece. The cake was decorated with pink icing, flowers and a little mermaid sitting on the top of it.   I had one craft ready to go ... fish shaped cut outs with all kinds of stuff to glue on to it (glitter glue too) and crayons to colour it. We taped a popsicle stick to the back and they became fish puppets. The kids seemed to love it. After the craft was done, my daughter opened her presents and then it was time to go.   Throughout the party, we had kids getting their picture taken behind an kid size 'Ariel' with the face cut out.  I made this out of foam board (I got it at Michael's arts & crafts). I used an old box as the stand and covered it with construction paper cut to look like seaweed. I used a goldfish stamp with tempera paint so it looked like fish swimming around the seaweed. To make the Ariel, I found a picture of her that would work for the foam board on the net, printed it out after modifying it to remove her face. I then cut a hole in a regular piece of paper and had my daughter try it on for size (since I needed the face to be the right size for kids her size). I used that as the template for the hole and proceeded to copy over the Ariel from the printout by looking at the picture and re-drawing it on the foam board. After I was happy with the drawing, I painted it and outlined the details with a black marker. I'm going to send copies of those pictures as part of the thank you cards as well as any other pic's of the kids at the party. As favours, I found little wooden buckets at the dollar store and filled them with goodies (hair elastics, bracelets, pencils, chocolates, little cars for the boys, etc.). I even got little chocolates that were wrapped like coins so they looked like treasure buckets.