Teen boys can be a challenge when it comes to planning a fun birthday party for them. You have to plan something more mature than you usually do and there is not a lot of help out there on the internet because all the birthday content out there is geared towards little kids. But we've got you covered now, because we are sharing all about how we kept it more simple this year for my sons 13th birthday celebration and it ended up being one of our best birthday parties yet. 

How We Kept It Simple But Awesome

1. Activity Out: Most kids are just excited to get to hang out with their buddies, there is really no need to go over the top. We cut a lot of the stress out by treating all my sons birthday guest to our local community pool. We had the boys met up at our home first to open gifts and have cake and ice cream. Then we carpooled over to the pool for some water fun. While we waited for the guest to arrive the boys had a blast playing a simple card game, Apples To Apples.

2. Simple Shark Decorations: We decided to only decorate the dinning room. Everything you see was purchased at the dollar store. My favorite part was the shark in the water silhouette centerpiece, made from two black poster-boards taped together. I just cut a simple shark shape out and added a top fin for the 3D effect. We also made a shark chandelier by using mini shark cutouts from my circuit machine and tapping them us at different lengths. 

3. Simple Shark Pool Game with a big splash! Sharks & Minnows Pool Game: There is a fun version of tag you can play in the water or in the yard. If you are having a shark themed pool party your teens will love this game of Sharks & Minnows. 

How To Play Sharks & Minnows:

(Object: To get across the pool to the other side without getting touched.) 

1. One person is the shark at first and starts out in the middle of the pool. The minnows all line up against the shallow end of the pool. When the shark yells "Minows Cross The Ocean!" everyone who is a minnow tries to swim to the other side without being touched. If the minows reach the other side they are safe for this round. Each minow that that gets tagged becomes a shark on the next round. Play round after round until there is only one minnow left. The minow is the winner. 

Game Tip: Kids and teens alike love seeing the adults get involved and play this silly game. So get in the pool with your birthday boy and have some fun being a shark and a minnow. Trust me it will be a hit. 

4. Just Do Simple Cake & Ice Cream At Your Home: We had the party on a Friday night, sang happy birthday to the birthday boy and then served up some delicous cake and ice cream at our home before heading to the pool. No dinner or overloading on snacks before swimming. All the kids ate dinner prior to coming to the party.  There was also no need to waste money renting a party room at the pool if we were just going to swim and be in the pool the whole time. I made sure to include information on the invitation about what we will be doing and serving at the party so parents are well informed. The Cake was a huge hit and couldn't be more simple to make. See Below for Directions:

5. Free Surfer Shark Cake Toppers: Printable cake toppers are every parents best friend. Especially the parents that are not cake decorators like me. Cover a cake with colored frosting and add some paper cake toppers and people will still be so impressed with how adorable your home made birthday cake turned out. I designed this Surfer Shark Cake Topper Set (because I suck at frosting decorating) to match my sons surfer shark invitations. Just print this set out on card stock paper, bubble cut, hot glue to the top shish kabob sticks and stick them in your kids cake accordingly. Tada!

click here to Download Surfer Shark Cake Topper Set For Free via google.doc 

Simple Surfer Shark Cake Directions

Tip a. Just the Top: Save time and money by cooking your cake in a rectangle baking pan and leaving it in the pan to serve up. Keep your cake in the rectangle pan so you only need to decorate the top. 

Tip b. Frosting: Use two different shades of blue frostings, one with a little more white in it than the other. Spread the frosting on in stripes alternating between the light blue and the regular blue. Once the stripes of blue frosting are covering the top of your cake use the flat side of a butter knife to blend the stripes together a little bit to create some dimension, and to look more like water waves. Use a zig zag motion as you spread the butter knife across the frosting on the cake. 

Tip c. To make the sand: in a blender, blend up some almond slices and vanilla cookies. The almonds will give the sand a more realistic look and it tastes delicious. Only put the sand in the middle or the edge to make it look like a beach or an island. 

What I learned from scaling it down:

This was my first low key birthday party I have ever done for my kids. I have always done budget friendly birthday parties but they were time consuming and super creative. Most of them took over a month to plan. I loved those birthday parties but as I have gotten older and have more kids now I just can't put that much energy and time into birthday parties anymore and I have had to scale back. Imagine my surprise when my son told me that this shark themed pool party birthday was one of his favorites ever. And imagine my surprise when Monday rolled around and my son told me all of his friends couldn't stop talking about how awesome his party was and how much fun playing sharks and minnows with him and his parents was!!!

Memorable amazing birthdays don't have to be a huge production or a drain on your wallet. You can make a big impact with your teen by just doing simple things like being more apart of your teens party, let your teen help plan his own party, or taking your teens and their friends out for an experience. Teen boys mostly just want to do something physical and laugh a bunch with their favorite guy friends. So easy!

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