S's 6th Birthday Party

When S and I talked about what she wanted to do for a party last year, one of the ideas she had (ok, I suggested after seeing cute stuff on Pinterest) was superheroes. But Dora won out. This year, I asked her if she wanted superheroes, and at first, she said yes. Then after I'd designed her invitations:

She said she wanted to do a princess party. One of the reasons she was excited about the superhero idea was the capes I told her we'd have for all the kids. I reminded her that most of the kids she was inviting were boys. She said it could be princesses and giants. Sigh. I told her we could do a princess/giant party, but I couldn't do costumes for giants so that part wouldn't happen. She went back to superheroes. Whew.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to start preparing as early as I usually do, so I didn't get everything done that I wanted to. And I hardly took any pictures. :( But it turned out pretty well overall. S enjoyed it, and that's all that really matters.

A friend of mine did a superhero party for her son a few years ago, so I stole some of her ideas. We had the party in our backyard, so I put the girls' easel in the driveway with the following note on the dry erase board:

Welcome to S's birthday party. We can't wait to celebrate with you. But first, you must make your way through the 4 tests every superhero must face:

• Agility
• Marksmanship
• Balance
• Bravery

So grab a cape and get started. Good luck!

The capes were hanging on the easel, in the five colors S had decided she wanted for her theme - pink, black, blue, purple and red. I ended up buying solid-colored, large handkerchiefs in the craft section at Hobby Lobby for 99 cents each, and then using velcro on two corners. Unfortunately, I'm slow at sewing - I only got three capes done one evening. And since I'd waited til four days before the party to start making them, I had to switch to fabric glue. That worked for the short term, but didn't last. Give yourself time to sew them if you go that route. We ended up just having the kids tie them if the velcro fell off.

Once they had their capes, they started the first challenge, which took them across the driveway to the side yard.

Then moved on to the second which took them further along the side of the house towards the backyard.

I had originally planned to use water balloons or wet sponge balls of some kind and have a target that looked like Captain America's shield, but I couldn't figure out how to prop it up, nor did I have time to buy plywood, cut it out and paint it on my tight schedule. So I switched to something more basic.

The third obstacle was my favorite, and one of the ideas I stole from my friend's blog. She had used red food coloring and dry ice to make water in a kiddie pool look like hot lava. But the kiddie pool I found was blue (the perfect match to S's color palette coincidentally), so I was afraid food coloring would just make the water look purple. So I ended up putting a red plastic tablecloth in the water instead which worked well. 

Unfortunately, the uneven terrain of our yard and my inability to acquire cinder blocks in a short time span resulted in a wobbly alternative that we had to dismantle minutes before the party began for fear of someone being injured. I was disappointed, but safety first. 

Then it was on to the last challenge, and I'm bummed the photo only shows the sign because the cave turned out pretty cool.

I cut out about a dozen craft foam bats and bought some crepe paper. I hung black, two-foot streamers and the bats at varying heights from the ceiling of the girls' play set. The kids had to climb the ladder, walk through the Batcave and then go down the slide where they saw the finish line:

The great thing about having this as the intro to the party was that it kept the kids entertained while everyone was arriving. And they went through it more than once if they wanted to. I had a table with coloring pages of superheroes as well as craft foam mask kits (also from Hobby Lobby) to keep them busy til everyone was there. Then we immediately had cupcakes and bomb pops and opened gifts. The cupcake toppers looked like this:

In addition to Captain America's symbol, I made Superman, Batman, Robin, The Flash, Spiderman, and The Green Lantern. I would have liked to have incorporated more girl heroes like Elektra or Wonder Woman, but I didn't think their symbols would be as clear and the photos I could find were too adult. The cake table had water bottles with masks cut from black craft foam, and a skyline of boxes spray painted black with white paper cutouts for windows. The blue tub on the right was for the bomb pops.

I started to make a banner out of comics but didn't get it done. Which was what I was most disappointed in since I went to the trouble to find and buy some. Oh well.

The party lasted about 1-1.5 hours which was all I had energy for this year. And as usual, I forgot to pass out the party favors until after several kids had left. Doh! Since they already had their masks and capes, I just did little favors this year, plastic cups with superheroes on them from Walmart (I know! I actually had my friend take my picture to prove to my husband I really went there), superhero pencils from Michaels' and a sucker. I was planning to do these cute masks and capes on the suckers, but ran out of time. (Check out the rest of that board and the I Did It board to see where I got lots of ideas.)

For the first time in her short little life, it was not 100 degrees on the day of her party. As a matter of fact, since we had it at 9:30am like usual to avoid the heat, the kids were complaining about being cold since it was only in the 70s. Beautiful!

Thankful for the opportunity to celebrate our big girl. She's amazing, and we are so blessed by her.