Jack's 5th Birthday - Super Mario Style

Jack turned 5 yesterday - the time has flown by so fast! We threw a birthday party for him and invited all the kids his age from the neighborhood. I made the invite in Photoshop Elements (and yes, I did remove the address and phone number for this blog post, mostly because my dad [you know, the one who is constantly hounding me for an update] reads this blog, and I don't want him to know where I live!) ;) Love ya dad!

Jack loves Super Mario, so we did a whole Mario party theme. I got most of my ideas from this blog (gotta give credit where credit is due)!

I finally got to use my pinata making skills I learned in my 7th grade spanish class -

If you can't tell (and what the heck is wrong with you if you can't?) it's a chain chomp.

I also made some coin boxes to put chocolate coins in and a couple piranha plants for decoration.

I made Jack a chocolate star cake with buttercream icing-

When the kids arrived, I had a sheet of Mario characters for them to color, cut out and glue on their goody bags. Of course Jack being the punk that he is decided he didn't need to do this, but everyone else loved it!
We then moved into the living room for the "goomba pop." I had put chocolate coins in brown balloons and blown them up. The kids took turns popping them to get the coins out and putting them in their coin boxes (or more often than not, eating them on the spot!).

Then we played "pin the mustache on Mario"

Little wide there Makele!

The next game was "Hot Bomb-omb." The kids sat in a circle and passed the "bomb-omb" (a ball) around while music played. When the music stopped, whoever was holding the bomb-omb was out. We did this until one person was left. One child tried to work the system when he wouldn't take the ball when it was passed to him. I thought he just didn't want to play. After a couple times I asked him why he wouldn't take it. He said, "because I want to win!" LOL!

The last game we played was a mushroom cake walk. I printed out mushrooms and labeled each with a number. The kids walked around the circle while music played. When the music stopped, I drew a number and whoever was standing on that number won a prize. A word to the wise - NEVER give out noisemakers as prizes to little kids - what was I thinking? ;)

Jack got lots of fun stuff from all of his friends.
He didn't want us singing "Happy Birthday" to him, but we did it anyway (after all it's not a party until someone cries)! Jack saw these tool candles at Michaels and had to have them for his cake because "Mario has tools."
Cake, ice cream & rootbeer - what more could a kid want? The little boy on the bottom left has the same affinity for the camera as Jack.
And finally, before the kids went home they all took a swing at the pinata. Since we had no where to hang it and it was too cold to go outside, Jeff made the supreme sacrifice and held it (can you see the look of fear in his eyes?).

It held up long enough for everyone to beat it at least once before it broke open all over the place-
I think it's a great look for Jeff ;) -
All the hard work putting this together was worth every bit to see the smile on Jack's face. He got so excited every time I showed him something new I had made. I think that was just as fun for him as the party!

It was such a busy day, that Jeff & I didn't even give Jack his present from us until today. I figured he had enough stuff to play with!