Yes, this year Ace turned 4 and with it we decided to have a monstrously themed and exciting birthday party to celebrate it. It truly was his first 'kid party' as last year we were in Mississippi and he had one guest his age at
his party. While fun it didn't have quite the chaotic and energetic feel of a true kid's birthday party and so this year we introduced him to that magic!
What better way to have a monster party than to have eyeballs on... everything! The wreath that greets the guests at the door, the table cloth, the party hats, the snack cups, in the jello!!! Eyes everywhere and especially on the cake!!!
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| I apparently didn't take a picture of this on the door and I'm too lazy to do it at the moment. :) |
One of my favorite parts of his birthday party is the cake. I love to try new techniques on cake and figure out fun new things to do. This year I decided to try some piping. His
first birthday I learned how to tackle fondant, his
second was shaping cake and using spray paint food coloring (lots of fun!), and his
third I used candy to create a story with the cake. This year I used cake pops and piping to make a orange monster cake (and I also used some orange spray paint dye to give the orange a bit more pop!)
For games and activities I wanted the party to have a free flow and nothing that I'd need corral the 14 kids ranging in age from 4-10 months old. So I set out ahead of time to have different activities that for the most part could be unsupervised and accomplished without much assistance. So for that I created a photo booth and used Ace's camera he got for Christmas last year as the main device to take pictures with so the kids could do it themselves. I found monster eyes at a local party store, used an orange sheet as the backdrop and then bought some monster mouths
here and taped them to straws to hold them. Tossed in a few accessories and created a few monster cut outs which I drew freehand and then painted the week leading up to the party. Oh the fun!
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| They look thrilled - lol I think Ace was not happy to be asked to stand still. :) Kaylee was suspect. |
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| The camera wandered away from the photobooth which is fine - it got a great perspective of the party! |
I created a coloring wall and drew on a large piece of paper several monsters that could be colored. A lot of these monsters I drew using examples on the Internet, but I free handed them. Spiced it up with the Happy Birthday and painted the letters using the water colors and stapled it to the fence. A bucket of $1 worth of crayons and a whole activity made for under $2! :) Quite the hit - although I am still finding a few crayon pieces in the yard!
The next activity was SLIME! Yep set up a station and used the slime that Ace had already enjoyed playing with and put out a few aprons. This activity probably could have used a bit more supervision as ultimately it ended up in a few kid's hair and used as a chasing device around the yard.... so since it is made with chemicals the dog probably shouldn't ingest there was a bit of a walking activity for some adults and myself later in the party to verify all large chunks were picked up... it was a hit though!
Final activity that I put together was a bean bag toss. I drew a monster and my husband constructed the actual bean bag tossing structure. I also sewed 8 bean bags using some adorable monster fabric that I found at a local store and filled them with rice so if those broke open no big deal. The kids loved this - and as I suspected having more bean bags would have been a good idea but I ran out of time! :)
For both Ace and Mae (and myself, hehe) I made appliques and put them onto shirts for them to wear at the party. Myself, I had some monster fur and hair extensions - we were quite a wild bunch! Dad was pretty 'normal' :) Ace had a great time and was running all over the place and at one point screamed as he was running around
"THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!!!!" Made me smile. It really was a good day!
What party is complete without presents!! Ace received his present earlier this month in the form of a play structure. It was a huge hit with the kids at the party and both Ace and Mae LOVE it. It was another free-form of entertainment to keep the kiddos happy! His friends brought presents too and boy oh boy was he excited about all of them!
As the party favor we had a station to 'Adopt a Monster' - yes the day before I took four hours of my morning and made 15 monsters for the party guests to adopt and I did pretty well with my calculations and everyone (even Ace and Mae) had a monster to take home. Whew! Me and my mad skillz with felt. hehe each monster was different. Sadly the best photo I have of all of them is a cell phone pic, but better than nothing! :)
and as the party came to a close I grabbed one more picture with my FOUR year old boy!
***Courtesy reminder - if you wish to pin this to Pinterest PLEASE DO NOT PIN PHOTOS THAT CONTAIN FACES OF KIDS. There are plenty of alternative pictures! Thank you!!***
