Pretty much nothing. Why do you ask?

Oh, you mean because on All Saints Day, when other folks were posting pictures of their little saints-in-the-making in their #catholiccostume, *I* was posting photos of various octopus-shaped foods?

I could try to come up with something about how the many arms of the octopus symbolize the many facets of the Church Triumphant? Or something?

But really, it’s just that Frankie’s birthday was on the 26th, but Sunday the 1st was the day Nana and Grandad could join us for his birthday party. He briefly considered having a Lightning McQueen party. Then decided to go with “Octopus.”

So an Octopus Party it was . . .  on All Saints Day. (But it was okay because we had an All Saints Party on Friday at our parkday.)

Anyway, I’m working on formatting this year’s All Saints Costumes, but I figured I’d take a break from that  to share Frankie’s party and the winners of the Rosary Giveaway and the Infant and Pregnancy Loss Giveaway {at the bottom}.

The Food

I had a lot of fun trying to come up with an octopus-themed menu. Here’s what we had . . .

1. Kale Salad aka “Tentacle Salad”
2. Crispy Onion Rings aka “Crunchy Little Suckers”
3. Fried Calamari
4. Goldfish crackers
5. Octo-Veggies
6. Octo-Fruit (made of a big watermelon hollowed out, and a personal watermelon sliced into eight legs)
7. Hot Dog-topuses

The Hot Dog-topuses were the best. Seriously. LOOK at them . . .

They are regular hot dogs. The husband and I cut faces (with various expressions, he did that happy little guy on top!) into them, and sliced the bottom three quarters into eight pieces. Then I deep fried them for about a minute and they curled up into super awesome tentacles!

I’d seen the idea to slice hot dogs into octopi years ago in Family Fun Magazine, I think. But this blog gave me the idea to FRY them.

Good times.

Here’s a link to download the free printable food tags.

To drink we had . . . grape juice aka “Squid Ink,” and Squirt. (Get it? SQUIRT. hee hee)

The Decor . . .

was pretty understated this year.

Bobby made some tissue paper octopus decorations and hung them from the ceiling. Some were upside down. But some octopuses are upside down. So it’s okay.

I made a banner and a poster.

Here’s a link to a downloadable printable banner. But, it says 4. And “Frankie.” If your kiddo happens to have a name that uses only the letters in “Happy Birthday Frankie” you could always print out individual letters and spell it yourself. In the PDF each letter is a full page, but I recommend setting your printer to print two pages on each page, so each letter is more like 5×7. Then I cut them with a rotary cutter, leaving the top edge untrimmed so I can fold it over, tape it, and thread a ribbon through them all to hang.

The Games

Jack was in charge of games, as he has been for the past few years. He had the kids play Octopus Tag and try to toss little squeezie octopuses into our bean bag toss stands.

And he created Octopus Tug o’ War, which was really cool.

He made an octopus out of rope and a reuseable shopping bag. Eight kids each stood on a stool (or paint can) and tugged. Last kid still on his stool wins.

The Cake

My mother-in-law gave me a fancy octopus cake pan a few years back, so I was glad I got to bust it out again.

So, that’s that. If anyone else ever throws an octopus birthday party for a four year old, this post is really going to come in handy.

And now for the winners . . .

Why I Bother With the Rosary

Kate of Our Epic Life wins:

Rebecca of The Millette Family blog wins:

Emily of Hines Home wins the:

We Shall Find Our Little Ones Again Up Above: Infant and Pregnancy Loss Awareness Month

If you won, and I could find an email address for you, you’ll have an email from me already. If you didn’t hear from me, please send me an email at helpdesk@catholicallyear.com to claim your prize by Thursday.

p.s. I meant to be done with the saint costumes already, but I’m not. So you’re welcome to keep sending them in if you haven’t!