Super Mario Super Party

Tucker's birthday party was today. This was one hectic week, all things considered. My mom and her husband were visiting, I had picked up several full shifts at the Y, I was volunteering in Sara's classroom and I had to get everything ready for the party.

But here it is, the end of the week, and we all survived. The party went beautifully. Because I got so many of my ideas from different blogs off the internet, I wanted to do a blog entry about what we did in case it might help out someone else.

Food: we kept it pretty simple. Veggies and dip, a fruit tray, cheese and crackers and then we served pizza.

Decorations: We ordered the basic party pack from Birthday Express. This included a tablecloth, plates, place mats, cups, napkins, balloons, forks and spoons. This is what the table looked like:

We played several games. 

Pin the mustache on Mario (the reason he looks funny is because I drew and colored him)

I forgot to take a picture before we pinned the first mustache . Oops.

Super Mario Bros. Bean Bag toss. We made this too. On a tri-fold display board we used a cd as a guide for how big to make the holes. We printed the characters off a website. The point value I made in Word using 72 point Bauhaus 93 font in bold. I found the bean bags (in mostly Mario colors) at Party City. The kids loved, loved, loved this. 

Coin toss: I bought a bag of 400 plastic coins at Party City, we tossed them up in the air, let them hit the floor and scatter, and the kid who picked up the most coins won a little prize. 

Egg race: Two plastic Easter eggs, two spoons, and the kids who weren't racing were the obstacle course. Priceless!

Dance game: We found this at Party City too. Each kid takes a card, makes up a dance move representing the picture on the card, and then all the guests try to string the routine together. So cute! Since I was playing too, I didn't get a picture of us playing this one, but here's a picture of the game.

Cake: I ordered the cake through a lady who works at the Y where I volunteer. She did an excellent job! Tucker still wanted some cupcakes, so I made red velvet ones with white cream cheese icing. I had tried making blue icing, but I couldn't get the color the correct shade.  

Gift bags: Wii Remote candy dispenser, Mario yo-yo, temporary tattoos, Halloween pencils, glow sticks, and some Mario fruit snacks.

The best part of the party, though, were the people who came - both kids and adults. We only let Tucker invite six kids and of those six, three didn't come. But those who did are good friends of ours and the parents stayed, which made it that much better. Especially when Tascha and Robert tried to take each other out in the egg race. And while I was doing the dance party with the kids, all the other grown ups were helping clean up, which was way above and beyond. I know it was Tucker's birthday, but today I feel like we were all given a gift.