What he wants – What she wants

For the second year in a row, I’ve struggled with combining the birthdays of my children. Toddler boy turned three in late-August and Kindergarten girl turned six in early-September. With their birthdays less than two weeks apart, they (and I) have known all along they would have a joint party. They love each other. They share the same friends. They both love cake and ice cream. Should be simple, right? Nooooo.

I have known for months that toddler boy would want Thomas the Train for his party theme. Kindergarten girl’s themes went in an order something like this: ABCs (since she’s learning to read), Ponies, Butterflies, How to Train Your Dragon, NOT Hello Kitty, and, and, and…

Last year I chose a rainbow theme birthday party to connect their love of Disney’s Cars and Fairies, but I was truly stumped with an idea for this year. In late spring, we hosted a “movies on the patio” playdate with friends and that got me thinking that I could connect just about any two things with a movie-themed party. From there, the planning was much easier.

After deciding upon a movie theme, Kindergarten girl picked “Cats and Dogs” to represent her interests and I ordered the movie posters right away. I wanted them to greet guests as they walked the red carpet. Despite that, the Thomas poster didn’t arrive in time for the party, so guests walked the red carpet sans posters. But don’t they look lovely?

Because our guests ranged from toddler to elementary school age, I kept the activities simple.

Guess How Much Movie Candy in the Jar

Many of our guests are emerging readers, writers and learning new math concepts in their classrooms. I wanted to take advantage of that by having them estimate how much movie candy was in each of several jars and record their findings. The closest guess for each container won the entire canister of candy…great incentive for kids and adults alike! For the preschool set, I had a special small jar of Dots prepared for them to estimate. After spending much time with the jar counting, we had a three-year-old guess the exact number! And toddler boy won a jar by guessing “95″ for everything (there were 80 Twizzlers in the jar and his guess was closest). In case you didn’t make the connection, 95 is Lightening McQueen’s number.

Piñata

Another driving force behind the movie theme was the fact that I had props, including the red carpet and a movie camera piñata, left over from an Oscar-themed party The Shopping Mama conducted for Redbox several seasons ago. To fill the piñata, I shunned the usual candy route. Because we were having pizza and a movie at dusk in the back yard, I filled the piñata with glow sticks and glow bracelets. As the children beat the piñata, many of the glow sticks were activated and shining when the contents came out. And were they a hit!

The glow stick love continued through bath time and into bed.

Cake

I made cupcakes on each child’s birthday, therefore I made the party cake to reflect the movie theme rather than Thomas or Cats and Dogs. A box of popcorn seemed the obvious choice and was so much fun to make. I am a firm believer that a cake should, above all, taste good. So for me, fondant and tons of dye were not options. I had to accomplish my cake goals with buttercream and small amounts of sprinkles and natural food coloring. To add kernels to the popcorn, I did use some yellow nonpariels.

Movie

What’s a movie-themed party without a movie screening? We set up a projector and hung a sheet across the back of the house for the older kids to view Cats and Dogs. The toddler set was inside watching Day of the Diesels with Thomas. To be honest, there were moments of viewing, but there was lots of running around playing with glow sticks and burning off cake sugar.

Goodie Bags

As guests departed, we asked them to make their own goodie bags. I set out boxes of movie candy and toys and asked them to take one of each to put in their popcorn bag. Toys included plush cats and dogs and train whistles from Oriental Trading as well as actual Thomas trains I scored in an eBay auction. We had some very happy, tired departing guests.

I’m so glad to have conquered this year’s challenge of combining the loves of both my kiddos. However, I do need a significant rest before next year. I don’t know how some parents plan more than one of these per year!

This weekend my son was so excited to attend his BFF’s birthday party. And, when I say BFF, I mean it. The two boys are joined at the hip and talk about each other constantly. It’s really quite cute. So, while my little man was enjoying an amazing party with his friends I was admiring all of the fabulous details of the Superhero Themed Birthday Party. It was awesome!

My friend Leslie is seriously multi-talented! She took my maternity and pre-baby family photos and designed and organized the entire party. I’m so happy she is allowing me to share the details!

Superhero Party Activities

The superheroes arrived to a felt cape with their initial. The first activity of the party was to decorate the cape with stars and lightning bolts. Each boy had his own bag of sticky decorations – so they just had to remove the backing and stick the shapes to the cape.

My little superhero and the birthday boy!

While decorating their capes, Leslie had some breaking news to share with the boys. Turns out there was a “Bad Guy” on the loose in our neighborhood! Leslie passed around a photo of the “Bad Guy” and told all the superheroes to keep their eyes peeled. Next activity? Weapons training to prepare for a run-in with the enemy. They did some NERF slingshots and bow and arrow practice, aiming at bulls eyes with a photo of the “Bad Guy”.

And then they spotted the “Bad Guy” (aka Leslie’s husband and the birthday boy’s dad)! The boys were armed with silly string to capture him!

Superhero Party Food

The party food was clever and very five year old boy friendly. The kids enjoyed Wonder Dogs (homemade corn dogs), Jello Jabs (portioned jello), Power Puffs (cheese puffs) and Superade (Gatorade). I loved how she used the red, yellow and blue color theme throughout the party from the capes to the balloons to the food.

The food was displayed on a table with a handmade cityscape backdrop. I am not sure the boys appreciated the awesome details, but I sure did!

Superhero Party Favors

In addition to taking home a cape and mask, each boy got to grab a few treats on the way out. They each got a superhero coloring/activity book, Punching Pops (Pop Rocks), Heros (candy dispensers) and red, blue and yellow candy sticks.

Happy Birthday, Noah! Thank you for an awesome party, Leslie, and thanks for letting me share the details.

For the second year in a row we celebrated my kids’ birthdays with a joint boy-girl party. My daughter’s birthday is mid-November and my son’s is 6 days before Christmas – not easy times to plan parties! So, for as long as I can, I’m going to throw one joint party. It’s easier for time management and allows me to spend a little more money and effort on one bigger party. Last year we had a Barnyard Bash. This year we went under the sea for a Mermaid & Pirate themed party.

Food & Desserts

The party was from 2 to 4 in the afternoon so I didn’t put much attention or effort into providing a lot of food. Call me a pregnant lady with a sweet tooth, but my attention was on providing lots of delicious desserts. The food table had “Sushi” (turkey sandwich rolls), Goldfish, and Fruit Salad. We had “Pirate Punch” (Capri-Suns) and Water for the pirates and mermaids to drink.

And for the good stuff… the desserts! We didn’t do a cake and instead did a sweets table with lots of choices.

We had Cupcakes, “Starfish” Rice Krispies Treats, Sugar Cookies shaped like mermaid tales, pirate hats, shells and starfish, Chocolate Covered Oreos, Cake Pops, and Swedish Fish (of course!).

We encouraged guests to take home some of the left over goodies (and there were plenty).

Pirate & Mermaid Party Fun & Games

As soon as kids arrived, they got decked out and dressed up like either a Mermaid or a Pirate. The Mermaid costumes – a felt tail and crown – were handmade by my mom and were just perfect! The pirate costumes were from Little Tikes. Having the kids get in character was a blast and all the kids really got into it. They gave each other pirate names and said “Arrgh!” a lot.

Once dressed, the kids Decorated Pirate Masks I found at Michael’s for $1 a piece. I thought it would take up all of 3 minutes, but the kids actually sat around the table and colored for a while. It was a good activity to have kids doing at the beginning while everyone was arriving and getting dressed.

Next we played a last minute addition to the party called Cannon Ball Pop. The goal of the game is to pop everyone else’s cannon ball (dark colored balloon tied to your ankle) and be the last one with a balloon. I wasn’t sure how well the game would go considering the kids were definitely on the young side of the target audience for the game. But, it was a huge success and totally hysterical. The kids got into it and were totally good sports about it.

Our “big” game of the day was a Treasure Hunt. We took advantage of having the party at the Community Center of our neighborhood and sent them on a hunt around the area. We made a treasure map that showed the location of three clues and also the treasure chest. The clues spelled out the words “A Pirate’s Life For Me” and the kids had to yell those magic words to get the treasure chest to open. My husband was the hunt-leader and I think he had as much fun as the kids.

The treasure chest had beaded necklaces, jewel rings, gold coins and, my favorite, Pirate’s Booty. I happen to think that’s totally funny and clever – yes, it was my idea.

Pirates & Mermaids!

The party was worth all the planning and time and effort when my daughter said, “This is my most favorite party ever.” Here are some of the happy mermaids and pirates at the end of the day – remind me next year to get a group photo early in the party!

Shopping Details

• Invitations, Paper Goodies & Signs: Simply Sweet Parties
• Chocolate Covered Oreos: Sweet Tooth Sweetie
• Sugar Cookies & Cake Pops: Heavenly Bites Cakes
• Paper Poms: Prost to the Host
• Mermaid Tales: Pattern from Miss Pretty Pretty, made with love by my mom
• Pirate Costumes: Little Tikes