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. 

What to do instead of housework...

I miss my camera. ::deep sigh::

Moving on....

I woke up this morning feeling queasy and therefore it was difficult to get out of bed. I'm not really sure where the queasy came from since I forgot (again) to take my iron pill before I went to sleep.

Unless....dinner last night was chicken I bought last week, but looked, smelled, and tasted okay. Still, you can't be too careful with poultry. We used it by the sell by date, so I think it's just my mind playing tricks on me. That and thinking about the food poisoning episode I wrote about last week might be messing with my head. Blech!

Either way, this morning, I dropped the T man off at school and came back home. I did four loads of laundry yesterday and it needs to be put away. A friend of ours dropped off a box of clothes for the kids yesterday, so I need to wash and sort that too. And since I'll be in the kids rooms, I should go ahead and switch out summer and fall/winter clothes. And dust. And vacuum.

But what am I doing? Blogging.

Naturally.

You're welcome. heehee!

Tucker's birthday party is in about three weeks. It's Mario themed, of course.  While my original party ideas have been scaled back to meet time and budget limits, I did manage to come up with what I hope will be a really fun party.

At first, I wanted to figure out a way to put various Mario scenes on the walls. You can purchase re-usable wall decals, but that gets expensive quickly. Like, really quickly. And since I'm not particularly artistic, I knew I wouldn't be able to draw scenes on poster board in time. Plus, the thought of all that responsibility being on my shoulders was a little too overwhelming on top of everything else. And Tucker tends to be a bit.....anal of a perfectionist about all things Mario. We are just going to have to make do. I'm sure it won't matter once the party starts anyway (and since he didn't know what I originally wanted to try and do).

One of the games we'll be playing is "Pin the Mustache on Mario". To do this, I copied/drew the Mario from the invitations on a piece of poster board.  I had started coloring it, but hadn't finished. So that's what I did when we got back home today. It turned out okay. I'd post a picture, but my camera isn't working. I'm pretty proud of it, considering my lack of true artistic ability. It will be interesting to see what Tucker says about it when he comes home from school today.

After finishing the poster, I cut out mustaches, which turned out really cute. Sara decided she wanted her mustache to be either light pink or light green, so she used the template we made and cut out mustaches in the colors she wanted. They turned out really cute and I wished for at least the seventh time today that my camera was working.

Next on the creative agenda? The target for the bean bag toss. I'm still coming up with ideas for that one, but I'm pretty sure the Mario characters should figure in there somehow.

In search of.....

Tucker's birthday is coming up soon. Like, next month soon.

Last year we did the Chuck E. Cheese thing, which was a lot of fun but also a little crazy.

One of the great things about where we live are the options available if you have a fall birthday:
    Lots of indoor pools so you could have a pool party
    Kiddie cooking class
    Apple or pumpkin picking trip with hayride
    Bonfire (okay, not such a good idea for a bunch of sugared up first graders, but it would be fun for me)
    The zoo
    The Little Gym
    Monkey Joe's
 
The list goes on and on....

So when we asked Tucker what he wanted to do for his birthday this year, of course he said, "Chuck E. Cheese!"

It took some convincing, but we eventually talked him into not having his party at Chuck E. Cheese.  So what did he decide he wanted to do?  His actual decision was to play video games with his friends. The only thing about that is that to Tucker, it would be the most fun ever to have everyone watch him play, which wouldn't be fun for anyone else after about three minutes. Plus, he's a little too competitive and not such a good sport and I really don't want anyone (birthday boy or otherwise) to end up upset or in tears.

What we eventually talked him into is a Super Mario Brothers themed party.  We are going to rent the community center in our neighborhood and have food, games, and cake.

I started looking for ideas online and I found some great ones. But time and money are a factor, so Robert and I have been burning up the internet looking for the supplies we need at the best prices.  Let's hope this whole things comes together like we are hoping. We are taking it old school with the games, too. I hope the kids have as much fun as I'm going to have. It's hard to tell these days what will work and what will flop.

Wish me luck!