8yr. old Luau Party- For my daughters 8th birthday we picked the Luau theme. We chose a park in our area as the place to hold it. The park was a great location for us because it has a huge covered picnic shelter just in case of rain. It also has a large sand volleyball area as well as lots of play equipment and large open spaces. Off of this website we decided on the "message in a bottle" invitations. We printed up the invitations on our computer, including all the pertinent info as well as some great clipart and the background was a translucent treasure map. We rolled it up and tied it with some twine and put them in 24 empty bottled water bottles along with two large pasta shells painted and topped each one with a cork that was tied with twine and attached to the neck of the bottle. We wanted the kids to really get the feel for the Luau theme so we decided that part of the party would include dressing up. For the girls I cut out what felt like a thousand flower shapes out of different colored tissue paper so that they could make their own leis. We also used a box of neon straws cut into one inch sections as spacers for the flowers and lengths of string to string them on. To make their grass skirts I found some wide double stick tape that we just easily fastened around their wastes and placed long strips of colored tissue paper onto the tape. This worked really well!! Each girl was then given a pair of cheap dollar tree sunglasses to complete their outfit. For the boys my daughter and I both felt that leis and grass skirts would not be welcomed so in keeping with the theme we picked "pirates". Each boy was given a pirate hat found at a local party store and an eyepatch that we made out of black posterboard and elastic string. To do something a little extra for them we found a neat parrot template on a website which we precut out and let them put together. The parrots were then pinned on their shoulders for a great effect. The games we picked out to play were pass the coconut, the kids sat in a circle and passed around a real coconut in a hot potato fashion while the music played and when it stopped whoever was holding the coconut was out until only one player remained. After this game we cracked open the coconut and everyone got a chance to sample the milk and the coconut meat inside. The next game was beach volleyball but instead of using a volleyball we blew up three brightly colored beach balls and the kids divided up into teams and tried to keep all the balls in the air. We had a traditional balloon popping game too. We divided into teams and they relayed to the end grabbed a balloon and had to sit on it and race back to tag the next in line. We also had a supply of extra things just in case we needed them such as frisbees, kites, hula hoops, a large tub of bubbles and bubble blowing equipment, etc. and we did end up using them too. For decorations we went to a party store and got some clearanced tropical fish tablecloths which we used as well as two plain blue plastic ones found at the dollar tree. We got plain blue plastic cups and plates and some plain napkins instead of purchasing the expensive matching ones. We did splurge a little and get some cardboard palm trees and hanging fish and a parrot decoration as well as an aloha sign. Trying to keep things simple we cooked hotdogs on the grill and served three different types of chips in new clean sandpails with the shovels used as serving spoons. We had a watermelon centerpiece that we carved simply and filled with fruit. The cake was a volcano cake that I fashioned together out of about 4 round layers cut to size and covered with chocolate frosting. I then just took some white icing and used a little red food coloring to tint it and warmed in the microwave and poured it over to look like lava. We used sparkler candles and it was a hit. The adults had a choice of volcano cake or a pineapple upside down cake that I also made. While waiting to eat I had a large fishbowl with tons of tropical and ocean stickers in it and the kids used them to decorate the plain tablecloths. Drinks were just different types of softdrinks but we did have the fancy drink umbrellas to use with them. The piñata that no party is complete without was a flamingo bought at the party store and filled with candy, plastic gold coins, and necklaces. The kids were all given plastic cups to stuff their loot in when the piñata broke. For music we a different beach music, luau music, and some popular kids music that we had to include. The kids were tired and dirty when it was time to go but they had a blast!!!!