Super Ethan Turns 5!

Ethan's Birthday invitation, Aaron and I made them.

Ethan turned 5 years old on June 7th. He wanted a Super Mario Birthday Party.

Of coarse he did. He wanted the one party that you can not go out and buy stuff for. Lucky mom!! So because I couldn't go buy stuff we just made it up.

We made Rockets, Had a star hunt, ate cake and Broke a coin pinata. When all was said and done I think it went well considering everything went wrong.

THE STORY:

Like I said before I couldn't go out and buy anything. I had this brilliant idea to make Luigi and Mario hats for the boys and princess crowns for the girls. I thought that I could get away cheaply with going to a paint store and getting the cheap hats that they give out to painters and dye them. Well evidently you can not dye paper hats, they fall apart. Lesson one learned. Plan B order hats from oriental trading. Now usually oriental trading is awfully fast in shipping, until I need them to be awfully fast. I thought I ordered the hats (and candy coins for the pinata) in plenty of time. I guess not because they didn't arrive as scheduled. Lesson 2: Place your order a month before. Plan C: I made hats out of card stock. I was very disappointed in them because I had bought hats that would look great but I had to settle for silly paper hats. URGH! Oh and did I mention that it rained so the paper hats were ruined.

Yeah, it rained. It was not supposed to rain, but it did. Ethan's party was outside. We couldn't go into the clubhouse because it was reserved, my house was definitely too small for the amount of people we had, we had to stick it out in the rain. All the hard work I went to was rushed into an hour party just to get the kids out of the rain.

I was really bummed, I think that is why it has taken me so ling to post this, because I was so disappointed in how it turned out. But I want Ethan to have pictures to remember his Mario birthday by so here it is...

Hunter, Marshall, Hunter, Ryan and Sam making their Rockets.

When the kids arrived they got to choose a hat and start decorating their paper rockets. The rockets were my sister in law Keri's idea. They were a lot of fun considering they got wet.

Kayden Cheesing it for the Camera!

The paper rockets go on the top of an L shaped PVC pipe at the end of the pipe is an empty water bottle the kids jump on to send their rockets soaring, they go far when dry!!

Next we went on a Star hunt. We hid stars around the playground with numbers on them. Then I gave the kids a sheet of paper with the numbered stars on it. when they had found and crossed off all of the stars they brought their paper back to me and I gave them a prize.

Ryan and Ethan Scoping out the Stars

I think they had fun with this. Their prize was a squeeze ball that looked like a star from Mario Galaxy.

Tragan looks really excited about it doesn't he?

Next came the pinata. I loved how it turned out, although this took a few tries to get right as well. Aaron said my first try looked like a flower. I don't know how a square box could look like a flower but I scrapped that one and ended up with the one we used. unfortunately I don't have a great picture of it. That is part of it here on the left.

Kayden, Ryan and Hunter gathering coins.

I made it into a pull string pinata so the kids took turns pulling out a string and when the right one was pulled gold coins came rushing out. They were chocolate!! I made the kids miniature coin blocks to collect their coins from the pinata, evidently I went a little overboard with the coins because there were so many of them and their little boxes could not hold the weight. another lesson learned.

I made Ethan's cake out of Cupcakes that looked like the mushrooms from Mario. They are just red Frosting and over sized white chocolate chips. They looked so cute on a cupcake stand. He had 5 red star candles on top. I think this was my favorite creation!!

Ethan has such great friends. He got so many presents for his birthday. He is a very lucky boy to have such good friends. I am glad that he has friends that I do not mind him playing with and that I don't have to worry about them getting into too much trouble. Thanks to all of you who helped with his party and who came to support my little guy even through the rain.

Happy Birthday Ethan! We love you and hope you have a great year!