Kaden's 5th birthday was last Wednesday. We like to celebrate all week long, so on his actual birthday, I made some Funfetti pancakes and sausage and we sang "Happy Birthday" and let him open a few presents before school. We always let the boys pick what they want to do on their birthday and Kaden picked Chuck E. Cheese, so we went to Chuck E. Cheese Wednesday night. We had a blast! When we got home, we let him open one more present early.
We had his actual birthday party on Saturday afternoon. The boys and I start talking about birthday parties way too early. I'm talking months early. As in Kaden will more than likely know what he wants to do for his 6th birthday in a few weeks. K.C. has had his 7th birthday planned since a few days after his 6th.
This year, Kaden wanted a Super Mario Galaxy party. He loves to play this game with Kevin on the Wii. K.C. had a Super Mario Brothers party this past summer, so while it was easy to pull some things together since I had practically just done one of these parties, I didn't want them to be too similar.
Kaden had a few requests for his party: a big cake, lumas (those stars from Mario), Princess Peach on his cake, a pinata and a party at home.
A friend of mine designed his cute invitations. He was so excited about sending these!
We decided to do the party in our backyard. With around twenty kids plus some parents and our family, backyard parties prove to be the best. For the most part, the kids stayed outside although Kevin walked in once to find Kaden sitting on the couch showing our wedding album to two little girls!
We set up a few tables for the kids to sit down for cake and ice cream, another table for food and a table for gifts. I decided to keep the centerpieces simple: Super Mario balloons tied together with a few regular balloons on the center of each table. On the food table, we sprinkled some jewels to mimic those from Super Mario Galaxy. I ordered plates, napkins and some Mario table clothes with gold coins from Birthday Express and picked up some solid table clothes for the other tables at Hobby Lobby.
Since the party started at 3, we didn't have to serve a meal. We had Ice Power (powdered donuts), Fire Power (Doritos), Yoshi Eggs (watermelon and cantelope), Velvetta Sausage Dip made by my mom and guacamole made by my FIL. Kaden wanted a cake and cupcakes, so I decided to simplify and ordered cupcakes from my local grocery store and put some star sprinkles on them.
The cake was a labor of love. It may not be the prettiest or done quite right, but I love to make the boys' birthday cakes. It's just something I always want to do. It didn't end up taking too long to make it, but it was slightly stressful as I can't really draw with a pencil and I knew that drawing with icing would be challenging.
I used boxed Betty Crocker Triple Chocolate Fudge cake mix as Kaden requested a chocolate cake. I made three layers for the bottom tier and two layers for the top. I used a recipe out of a church cookbook for the icing and dyed it sky blue. It was really easy! I made one batch of icing which was enough for between the layers and a light covering on the outside of the bottom two cakes. My second batch of icing was used to really ice the cake. Instead of dealing with making multiple colors of icing and piping them through bags, I bought decorators icing that was already colored and used it. I also made yellow lumas and wrote his name across them to stand on top of the cake. Right before the party, he picked out which figurines he wanted on top and where they were going. You can check out my Pinterest board to see several cakes that I used for inspiration for his. I was really happy with the final product and he loved it!
Instead of doing huge treat bags for party favors, I made Mario Mustaches and Lumas. I did mustaches for K.C.'s party last summer and they were a big hit, so I was thankful when I found a star chocolate mold and yellow chocolate to use for the stars. I ended up purchasing another mustache mold and two star molds and trust me, the extra $5 for those molds was worth being able to make a double batch at a time as we ended up with close to 60 chocolate pops. I tied those up in small bags and used red tulle for the mustaches and black for the stars. I also used some black icing to put eyes on the lumas. Unfortunately, I didn't get a final photo of the pops as they went quickly and I didn't take them outside until people were leaving because I didn't want them to melt, but you can see what the lumas looked like by looking at the top of Kaden's cake.
The kids had a great time playing. We didn't do any organized games as it's been my experience that they just want to play. We have a great treehouse and swing, so they played on that, and Kevin also got a few games out that they enjoyed playing.
Kaden was so excited when it was time to cut the cake. You should've seen him running to gather his friends over to the table. We served the cake with ice cream (individual Blue Bell and Birthday Cake cups) and then did the pinata. Unfortunately, our super heavy pinata filled with too-much candy we already had (props for cleaning out the candy cabinet!) didn't stay up too long, but the kids still had fun diving in after the treats even if they didn't all get to whack it with a bat! We gave out clear treat bags with a Super Mario Galaxy sticker in them for the kids to fill.
Kaden got so many nice presents from his friends and family. Legos, transformers, clothes, books, his very own skateboard (we let him open it early on Wednesday and he's been scooting around the house!) and his "special candy" from MiMi and Granddady. Kaden has been asking for "special candy" for his birthday, so he was excited when MiMi gave him some that night!
After all of his friends left, our family stayed around and we picked up pizza. We ate outside, had more cake and then helped the boys open the new gifts inside. It was a great way to unwind after a busy day of fun!
That night, at bedtime, Kaden looked at Kevin and me and thanked us for his "wonderful birthday." It's so great to know that he appreciated what we put together for him and he is definitely one of our wonderful boys. I'm so thankful he's ours!Labels: birthday, Kaden
