Ali's 5th Superhero Birthday Party!

How adorable does my little guy look!

Print POP/BAM signs here and Super Hero banner letters here all for freeee!

Here's the kid's tablescape, a shot of our photo booth backdrop (bought from Target) and a view of the dessert/party favor table. I got mostly all my decor items from the Dollar store, Walmart, and Target. 

Table sign and Super hero cupcake toppers found here and here for free!

Just an AWESOME day at the park, light breeze no humidity. Tampa winter weather FTW!

 

 What more can a kid want than a party in the park with his buddies, some facepainting and balloons?

 

Photo Booth Fun: All the masks were printed from here and here, just need a colored printer! To make them fancier/sturdy I glued them onto poster paper and taped them to wooden dowels found at Michael's/Walmart. 

And then...THE BEST THING EVER happened!! SPIDER-MAN HIMSELF SHOWED UP!!!

Spiderman (and a few imposters) with his posse!

The boys loveddd this. Spiderman did 30 minutes of stunts/backflips and posing with everyone. The kids got to ask him all sorts of crazy questions like how do you eat if you have no mouth lol it was great.

Now a closer look at the food/dessert table:

 

Menu

Snacks: Thors Hammers with cheese, Spidey Dip with chips, Avengers Cheez Its, PopBAMcorn,  Entrees: Chicken/Egg Salad Sandwiches, Pizza, Baked Ziti

Dessert: Cupcakes, Brownies and Cake. 

Simple yet perfect for a fun birthday party. 

I really loved how the cake turned out. The girl who did the cake was amazing, it tasted so good the fondant wasn't super hard and the cookies and cream filling was delicious. Success. 

Food labels from here and water bottle labels from here again all for free!!

check out that glowing smile, my little guy soaking in all the singing just for him!

Because I didn't have the heart to throw out the banner/signage I worked so hard to print/cut/paste, I decided to reuse it as... Door Decor!

Behind the scenes: 

Favor bag designs printed from here

Also, inside each favor bag I had Ali draw a picture (of course he draws Sully and Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc instead of superheros!) and write thank you to all his friends using this template  then we filled it with the usual superhero party favor items you can find at Walmart/Target.

Another Win: Post Halloween, these Avengers/Spiderman kits were on sale at Target for 75% off, I knew they'd come in handy. Kids thoroughly loved the glow sticks! 

Since Ali is blessed with an accountant mama I had a budget for everything before I started working on it. I knew we didn't want to spend a ton, but I did want to make it super fun. Here's how the finances all panned out:

Facepaint/Balloon/Spiderman			$275
Superhero Cake			50
Park Shelter Fees			50
Party Favors			50
Food			150
Paper Products/Table covers			50
Total Cost			$625

The main things were the entertainment, cake, and venue. To me it was worth seeing Ali's excitement to pay for Spider-man and the cake was something he was really looking forward to so I got very lucky to find a girl who made the fondant cake for so cheap! The park location (Ballast Point Park in South Tampa) was also important to us, this park had a kids splash area (ended up being a little to chilly for water play but on a sunny day this is ideal in Florida), a really big non messy playground (no mulch!), big covered shelters (it randomly rains in Tampa a lot) and this beautiful pier/dock area where lots of families went post party to take pictures. It can get very crowded on a nice day, so I'm glad we booked the shelter ahead of time. 

I purposely kept the menu very simple/affordable, because being so pregnant I didn't have a ton of energy to cook up a storm plus I knew with being outdoors it had to be easy finger foods that didn't require a lot of effort to prep or eat. I think overall everyone enjoyed the food. I did bake the cupcakes and brownies myself along with the sandwiches and pasta. Ali's talented dad made the Spidey dip. We had plenty of food to feed 40 adults and 35 kids. I also used a lot of paper products leftover from previous parties. I'm probably over estimating in my cost of that. I only did the themed matching items for the kids table.

Printing out the decorations really saved us a TON of money and made everything look way fancier; it was a relief not to pay the prices some people were charging on Etsy for these same items! The boys superhero costumes were old Halloween costumes, I got the Superman bow tie from H&M on sale a long time ago and held onto it for this event. The reversible Batman/Superman cape I wore was a gift my mom gave Ali years ago. I also decorated the cake table with Super hero figures Ali had been gifted in the past (you can find them all at Target/Walmart though). I got mine and hubby's shirts from Walmart, $7.99 each I think? So yeah it was very easy to stay within budget for me and thankfully everything turned out great. Kids had a blast, what more can you ask? 

Pinterest Inspired Party!

At the beginning of February I held a lunch at my place for a couple of friends I've met in the few months since we've moved here. Between all our mini trips out of town and our two trips to NJ, I hadn't had a chance to invite anyone over and I took this as an opportunity to put to work some of the great party ideas I had been pinning on Pinterest. Also, since the Superbowl and Valentine's Day are February's two major occasions I figured I'd try to incorporate them in some way. 

My party was on Saturday before the Superbowl, but none of us girls really care much at all about football so the only way I chose to incorporate the Superbowl was in the menu. Superbowl parties are known to have some great appetizers and snacks that no one can resist, not even someone as apathetic towards football as myself! My two tributes to the Superbowl were cheeseburger sliders and buffalo chicken dip with pita chips. My friend Neda (who has a great makeup blog Here) made this AH-MAZING buffalo chicken dip for us a few times that I couldn't wait to try myself. It was really so simple to make and it's one of those snacks everyone keeps eating throughout the party. 

The rest of my party menu was: Cajun Shrimp Pasta (SO GOOD, I had none left!), Kale Quinoa Salad (which turned out amazing yet again. You know a salad is good when people willingly take it home with them!!), and bruschetta

Didn't have a chance to take a better picture of these

Now to include Valentine's Day into my party I tried my best not to go crazy on pink, red and hearts but its nearly impossible for me to not go overboard with anything. I tried to find sweet yet subtle items. For example, I made German chocolate cupcakes with a coconut vanilla frosting which I dyed pink using food coloring and I baked them in a silicon heart shaped cupcake pan I got from Target a few years ago, seen in this post. I also found some adorable items in the $1 section of Target which I couldn't resist. Like a small felt hearts banner, which was used as the backdrop to our photo booth. Instead of doing the usual sodas for drinks, I had (store bought) pink lemonade and put frozen berries to keep the drinks chilled. It was hard to keep away from all the overload of Valentine's day since I love themed parties SO much, but I realize just using a few themed ideas was a good way to go about it without seeming like cupid threw up all over everything.

'Pinspired' Ideas:

Mason Jars! I've been seeing these on Pinterest for a long while now, and I did my best to not fall into the trap of liking something just because it's popular, but seriously they are SO cute looking! They really added a chic feel to the party. By serving pink lemonade in them with a striped paper straw it caught everyone's attention since as something out of the normal soda in a glass way to serve drinks.  I got mine at Walmart 12 for $9 and the paper straws were from Target's party decor section, I think 20 for $2. 

Photobooth ideas are all over Pinterest. Originally I thought to make my own props, but when Target had a whole bag full of them for just $5, how could I turn it down? ;) I kept it simple with just a banner against our white wall and since we had a bunch of kids at the party, it kept them busy for a solid 15 minutes while we were able to take a gazillion adorable pictures of which maybe 3 came out nice. I liked this idea because it gave us something different to do than the usual munching and chatter without being too involved like playing organized games. 

Fruit Cones are such a simple yet fun way to make dessert look classy! Since I had some pretty heavy items on my lunch menu for the healthy eater I thought these fruit cones were a nice dessert alternative, plus the kids even liked how pretty they made the fruit look and were happy to snack on them.

Okay so I only partly tried to keep dessert healthy. Because when I saw these S'mores Brownies on Pinterest, all self control was lost. They were definitely a gluttonous addition to my dessert menu but one I do not regret. Ok maybe a little. Just imagine sweet gooey melted marshmallows sandwiched between a decadent chocolate brownie with a layer of crunchy graham cracker thrown in! I swear I have no self control. But they're SO worth trying!

bubbly, ooey, gooey marshmallow goodness!

Also, my husband is a Valentine's baby and as you may remember from my post last year I tend to get super cheesy with my ideas to celebrate his big day. So this year was no different. I turned to my beloved Pinterest for ways to surprise him. He grew up outside of America and is a HUGE fan of international chocolate bars. I'd seen some adorable cards using candy bars but I knew they wouldn't work for him since he's not really into Snickers, Mr Goodbar etc. I started leaving him little messages all week with chocolate bars attached, next to his keys or in his laptop bag and then on his actual birthday I gave him the card with a whole bunch added on. I forgot to take pictures of the ones from earlier in the week but it was something like 'Thanks for not being a FLAKE, you're an awesome husband and a great dad. We love you' and 'Hey Handsome, the AERO of my heart points to you!'

Now that Ali is old enough to understand birthdays, I had him make a present for his Baba too. Of course the idea was Pinterest inspired and it worked out pretty nicely. I bought poster paper and paintbrushes from the dollar store and Crayola washable paint from Target for $4, which we had LOADS of fun painting with in the bathtub afterwards. My advice is to practice the hand and footprint first on regular paper so you get the hang of it, before you attempt it on the actual poster. It was a fairly cheap craft with a result that looks so stinkin' adorable; we're planning to get a nice frame for it to put up in Ali's room.

Lastly, I tried to make these adorable strawberry roses and here is where the phrase "Pinterest Fail" comes to mind. They weren't as easy as they looked and definitely very time consuming. I was only able to get 3 done before I realized my husband wouldn't wait more than 3 seconds to devour them and he couldn't care less how his strawberries look, but he does love them dipped in chocolate! Lesson learned. I thought my plate looked cute and the hubster was certainly impressed with all of my creative attempts. 

Hope you guys enjoyed reading all these crazy Pinspired ideas I put to work and they've inspired you to try out some of your own!