THEME

Almost as soon as we wrapped up Camryn’s birthday party last year, she started planning her party for this year. Barbie theme was her top choice, but I tried not to commit until it got closer in case she changed her mind. When she asked for a Barbie costume for Halloween last year, I knew a Barbie birthday party was practically guaranteed. What I wasn’t expecting was for her to dream up a Barbie pool party.

The thought of hosting a pool party for a group of little kids gave me plenty of anxiety. But after testing the waters with her kindergarten graduation party (which went smoother than I imagined), I decided we could dive in.

Of course Camryn had a specific swimsuit in mind: a pink long-sleeve rash guard with a quarter zip and her name written in the Barbie font. I found one very similar on Etsy, so I messaged them and asked if they could make it long sleeve with a quarter zip. They said they could, I paid and corresponded with them for a week. Everything seemed fine, but suddenly, the shop owner ghosted me and didn’t ship my order. Etsy had to get involved and I did get my money back, but I knew Camryn would be disappointed. After weeks of searching, I found another Etsy shop that could at least customize the rash guard. I explained the situation to Camryn and she seemed fine with the changes. The only problem was finding matching bottoms. Amazon came to the rescue and the bottoms were the exact color of the name on her rash guard!

DECORATIONS

After last year’s marathon of hand-painted cardboard cutouts, I was grateful when Camryn’s only requests were a giant Barbie box and a hand-painted banner. She wanted the banner to say, “Happy birthday, Camryn!” and she insisted I hang it over the cake table on top of the pink fringe background.

As for the Barbie box, it surprisingly only took one afternoon to glue and paint, then another hour the next day to paint her name. I did some rough measurements and cut the box, then hot glued all the edges together. Camryn helped me take the box and spray paint outside. I painted the entire box white and then painted the entire box Barbie pink. Somehow, every shade of pink I ordered from different shops matched perfectly, which felt like a small miracle! Especially since I ordered everything at different times and from different places.

Camryn also asked for pink beach balls and a Barbie boat. She and I spent Wednesday afternoon inflating all of them and I was impressed that we only had to add air to one of the beach balls before the party. The Barbie boat seemed to be the crowd favorite!

We ended up having to do the balloons ourselves this year (first world problem, I know). My mom and I spent an hour or so the night before inflating and attaching them to the balloon strip. I always have the worst luck with balloons, which is why I hate doing them myself. We probably had about 10 pop that night and another 3 or 4 popped as we were attaching them to the windows. A few more popped just before guests arrived, but I was over it at that point and just let it be.

Six years and counting doing photos of Camryn from the last year in the shape of her age! She requested a Barbie photo session and I framed one of her favorites for the table.

FOOD

Camryn has two birthday traditions that never change: themed sugar cookies from Mrs. Summer and a cake from Mrs. Phyllis. This year’s cookies featured four fun Barbie-inspired designs, and her cake that was made to look like a swimming pool was everything she imagined. We added a few of Camryn’s favorite salty snacks (pretzel sticks, goldfish, and veggie straws) so the table wouldn’t be full of sugar.

It was no surprise that Camryn didn’t want the spotlight when it came time to sing. She even volunteered Collin to blow out her candle for her. In the end, she compromised with a whispered birthday song and blew the candle out herself with a smile.

Thank you to everyone who made our girl feel so loved and celebrated on her special day! All of her Barbie pool party dreams came true!

Camryn requested pictures in her Barbie swimsuit AND her Barbie costume. Made my heart smile to take these for her!

She has also been asking for an American Girl doll for months. Little did she know I had already bought one for her birthday. She was one happy birthday girl 🙂

The Creative Team:

Cake: Phyllis Davis

Cookies: Summer Brown