J’s Ariel Pool Party Part II: An Ocean Themed Menu

As I just threw J a Tangled themed birthday party, I thought it was high time that I publish the second half of her Ariel pool party post. I wrote it ages ago, but had not inserted all the pics. My bad. Here it is…

An Ariel pool party would not be complete without an ocean-themed menu. This party was actually a pot luck, but I have great friends who are completely on board with my crazy ideas. I came up with the following:

Appetizers: 

• Seaweed Dip (aka Spinach Dip)
• Goldfish, Cheese Whales and Oyster Crackers

The spinach dip, brought by my friend Julia, was a huge hit. She had a lot of requests for her recipe, which involved walking into HEB and finding the spinach dip in the refrigerated section 🙂 And all kids love fishes, especially when there are cheese, chocolate and pretzel flavored varieties.

Main Course:

• “Sand”-wiches including “peanut butter and jellyfish”, “hummus and sea cucumber “and “submarine” sand-wiches
• Shell Pasta Salad (made with shell pasta, of course)
• Seaweed Salad  (aka Mixed Greens)
• Whale Chicken Nuggets

The pasta salad was displayed in a sand bucket, as I had seen many Pinterest ladies do. I opted not to make my guests use a shovel to scoop out the pasta. Sometimes you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere. Making the sandwiches fish-shaped was harder than it looked. I had a total Pinterest fail. The boys (hubby and cousin) bailed me out, toasting the bread and using a cookie cutter to carefully make each fish shape before filling with PB or hummus. The cookie cutter I used can be found here.

Beverages

• The Deep Blue Sea
• The Red Sea

We had both adult-friendly and kid-friendly beverages. The Deep Blue Sea was actually Simply Lemonade with a few drops of blue food coloring. Thanks to my HS friend Kristi M&M for throwing a baby shower and posting to Facebook her blue punch as an inspiration. The Red Sea was sangria. I firmly believe you cannot throw a summer party without serving sangria.

Dessert

• Blue and purple cupcakes adorned with candy seashells and Ariel’s friends
• Oyster and Pearl Macarons
• Gummy Penguins, Shark Gummy Fruit and Swedish Fish
• Swiss Roll Sushi

Ariel and her friends adorned the cupcakes as well as seashell candies I made with a Wilton candy mold. The Ariel figurines were purchased from Amazon and were found at a great bargain price. The candy molds were also a Pinterest fail initially, but I eventually got the hang of it. The macarons are found in the frozen section of Trader Joe’s. I carefully inserted a small pearl candy in each. Cute and yummy! I originally had plans to make rice crispy sushi, but I ran out of time. The swiss roll sushi was a quick and easy substitute.

The buffet cards were a free printable courtesy of The Suburban Mom and can be edited in Pic Monkey to reflect your personal menu. Get the free download here.

All the kids had a great time splashing around the pool and blowing bubbles on the patio after dessert. My favorite little hostess had an especially good time and informed me that next she is having a Rapunzel birthday party. Better gear up for that one! She sure is bossy 🙂