Nothing fills my heart more than being able to create opportunities for my kids to pretend. This 9th birthday was a dolphin filled dream-come-true for my daughter, and by extension, for me too.Winter, from the movie “Dolphin Tale,” has captured my daughter’s heart. She has been reading about Winter for several years now, so when the movie came out it only fanned the flames of her excitement about rescuing animals.
It is amazing what we had around the house for decorations. A blanket became our photo backdrop, shells picked up on the beach and glass beads from the fishtank became centerpieces, and we were able to combine lots of leftover blue and green ribbons for fun accents.
Unfortunately, the one thing we didn’t have was a dolphin dress. This was my daughter’s only request for her birthday. I checked esty, the mall, and even the fabric store, and came up empty. On our very last outing we discovered a glass dolphin charm and the birthday girl declared it “perfect.” (phew!) She decided to string it with seed beads, and wear a shiny blue “ocean” dress. Love that creativity!
We picked up our party supplies through Oriental Trading, and created coordinating personalized supplies out of a photo of the napkin with a bit of work in Photoshop.As the kids arrived they received their “official” rescue worker badges and they stayed busy decorating their dolphin carriers (gift bags).
We received an urgent message for the team telling us that that a pod of dolphins had been injured, and the happy crew rushed out to find them. The kids searched throughout the yard to find the injured creatures.
Once the dolphins were found (they were labeled with each child’s name) they carefully carried their own dolphin back to the marine hospital in their carrier for an examination.
We measured, weighed, and named each dolphin. Then they got to work helping their animal to heal. They gave them shots (infant medicine syringes I picked up for free at our local pharmacy), performed surgery to repair the dolphin’s injuries (sewed up the opened seam), and wrap them up in bandages (strips of white fabric). This was a HUGE hit. Even the littlest kids enjoyed attempting to sew the seams back together, but I was grateful for extra adults on hand to help out.
After the dolphins were feeling better we fed them with bottles and placed them back in their carriers.
Party food was coordinated by the birthday girl and included baked haddock, goldfish crackers, and pasta “shells.” She even designed and decorated her birthday cake herself.
We played dolphin ring-toss and made our own erasers with a fun “eraser clay” made by Sculpey, but to be completely honest, it was the toy dolphins that monopolized the kids attention. They kept having to return to the hospital to give them more medicine or re-bandage their wounds.
What a fun day! It was made even more special by the delivery of a new pet, curiously named Marshmallow, from some good friends. My little marine biologist was over-the-moon excited to have her own pet. She is loving her new responsibility, and is taking the job quite seriously. It is sweet to see her so happy.
Any fun parties happening at your house?
Dolphin Rescue Party
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My daughter LOVES winter too!! She will be 7 and she wants to do a winter the dolphin theme. Can you tell me where you bought the stickers and do you have a download of the badge you used?
Thanks Casey
Hi Casey,
The stickers are from Oriental Trading:
http://www.orientaltrading.com/ocean-life-roll-stickers-a2-9_1330-12-1.fltr?Ntt=ocean%20stickers
Unfortunately, I didn’t save the badge template. Sorry!
Whoops! Those stickers were the ones we used for our Animal Habitat party, not the dolphin one. They might work though.
I didn’t use any stickers on the badges. It was an image I scanned off of the napkins that she chose and photoshopped onto her cards etc.