This year for my daughter 2nd birthday I decided to do a LUAU themed party. We live in Miami and HAWAIIAN/BEACH stuff is easily found here. We have very large famillies and many friends so this was no small party. We used colors like pink, purple, orange, lime green, aqau for as many things as we could.

INVITATIONs: I went online and found message in a bottles" sold in bulk. We needed about 30-35 invitations. Inside we put sand shells small pair of eraser flip flops we found on oriental trading and an umbrella. We printed out a small invite that said "We're having a luau its sure to be fun! Come Celebrat Nati's 2nd birthday. Don't forget to dress as a tourist as tacky as can be the setting is the tropics like the beach of Hawaii" Since most of the guests live within miles of us we personally delivered the invitations by hand. Some to their houses and some were given out at work to co-workers etc. The few that did live far away we mailed them in a small box wrapped in white with vintage HAWAIIAN posters glued on. The box looked like an old suitcase or package.

DECORATIONS:At the start of summer DOLLAR TREE has a great array of LUAU gear. I bought napkins plates confetti signs inflatable flamingos & palm trees TIKI's in all formssigns with ALOHA and LUAU on them. I spent about $100 bucks on all these things and obviously had 100 pieces of deorations. Apart from that I painted wooden cutouts in the shape of a pineapple hula boy and girl 2 tikis a tourist couple for the kids to stick their heads out of. For the entry way I painted an airplane that says "ALOHA AIRLINES". For centerpieces I made cookie bouquets with a hawaiian theme (flip flops pineapple hula girl bikini palm tree etc.) I also made signs to find the party from the entrance of the park that said "NATI-KAI's Luau Party" "The Tacky Tiki Party" "Follow the TIKI to Nati's Island Bash" etc. They were the talk of the park!

ACTIVITIES: After the guests entered the area where the party was they would be greeted by some hawaiin music and our plane in the entrace way. Aa few steps from there was a table with a sign that said WELCOME TO HAWAII. Please get a passport. I made a "50 states passport" and the instructions were to find Hawaii and place a sticker next to it. Just like they do on real passports. The PP told the kids to draw their pic on the front and fill out their info. I provided crayons and pencils for them. They are also able to mark off other places they have visited. A few steps from here I made a sign that said ALOHA- please take one and next to the sign was a box full of colorful lei's. Enough for my 85 adults and 45 kids! As a fun food activity I set up a cookie decortion station where kids can decorate surf board bikinis palm trees flip flops pineapples etc.

COSTUMES: Everyone was told to come in Hawaiian shirts/dresses shorts and flip flops.

PARTY SNACKS: We had many Island inspired food like sweet and sour meatballs fruit salads ham w/ pineapple. We also had regular foods like pizza (some hawaiian) hotdogs meat platter etc. We served lots of water since its so hot in Miami in the summertime HAWAIIAN PUNCH juice and soda. 

CAKE: I am a cake decorator so I went all out for the cake. I made 4 6 inch tiki's decorated in fondant as the base of the cake. On top of that I made a flat sheet cake as the "tray" on top of that I made a cute pink "roast" pig. I decided to make him happy and pink since it is a 2 year old bday. He had lettuce around him and had two rings of fondant pineapple on him. To each side I made to mountains of cake and place sugar hibiscus's spread out throughout. On the bottom of the moutains I made graham cracker/brown sugar "sand". It was definitly an AWE inspiring cake. IT was about 5 1/2 feet wide. The table was 6 feet.

FAVORS: For favors I found tiki men goblets at DOLLAR TREE. I also bought hibiscus baggies at WALMART for .25 cents (they had all the LUAU stuff on sale already) and filled them with candy luau pencils erasers and shells. Last year my party had a few people less but this year I actually had my families friends asking if they could come. This was no cheap party but they are a once in a lifetime event. My daughter will have her pictures forever!"