So Jude officially turned 4 on January 2nd, but since we were expecting a baby any day, we pushed back the celebration until after Lily came. We ended up throwing Jude's Birthday party on January 25th--two weeks after Lily.
Jude is obsessed with Mario, so it was a given that his party would be Mario-themed. I had a good time finding ideas for games, treats and decorations online (thanks, Pinterest!) and putting together something that would be fun for kiddos Jude's age.
Since Mario was originally 8-bit, I thought it would be neat to make Mario figures out of Perler beads and use those to not only top the cupcakes, but be a favor that the kids could take home as well.
Lance got the "bead fever" and was my constant companion while I worked, making masterpieces of his own.
It was time-consuming but they turned out so cute.
Nice!
Of course we had to have a pinata! Since it was Mario and it had to be a bad guy and it had to be round, the options were either King Boo or a Chain Chomp. Jude chose Boo which was perfect!
He helped me paint the base color. :)
The day before the party Amy came to help me finish the decorations and prep for the party. She and I stayed up until the early morning putting the finishing touches on everything from the pinata to the snacks. She was amazing! I wish I had a picture of her helping me. I could not have done it without her!
The day of the party was also Lance's first Pinewood Derby! We went to cheer him on that morning.
Lance designed the car all by himself, carved it with Scott and painted it with me. It's shaped similar to a bullet. He wanted it to be "aerodynamic". :)
Watching.
Lance's car did a great job! He didn't take home a trophy (something he was pretty upset about), but I thought for his first attempt he gave the other cars a run for their money.
Before we knew it, it was party time!
I think King Boo turned out so cute! I was sad we were going to destroy him.
I made this little chain chomp as decoration (it was Lance's idea) for the table, along with chocolate mustaches and mushrooms (brownie bites dipped in red chocolate with white M&M's and a marshmallow for the body).
We also had chocolate coins the kids could grab and eat.
Piranha plant! (I forgot that they have lips. Oops!) The pipes were PVC pipe joints that I spray-painted green.
We had these great mustache stickers, but unfortunately they didn't stick very well. We did manage to get a picture with Jude wearing one:
And the Perler bead characters? They turned out super cute!
So fun!
Lance :)
We had red Mario hats for the boys and little Princess Peach crowns for the girls to wear.
George's whole family came into town for the party as did my mom and Amy!
Lance, Callie and Bryce spent most of the time in the back room together while the little kids played games. Our first game was "Musical Pipes". It's basically musical chairs but instead of chairs we had green circles on the floor that they had to sit on. The kids thought it was fun!
Our next game was "Stomp the Goomba". George and Amy had stuffed chocolate coins inside a bunch of brown balloons. We dumped them outside and had the kids pop them to collect the coins.
Poor Cole (red striped shirt) tried so hard to pop the balloons but was too light to do any real damage. I think this is what started his melt-down for the rest of the party.
While we were outside, we did the pinata:
I think we had about 15 kids!
Jude was up first!
I made this pinata a lot thinner than my last ones and I think I made it too thin. Lance was the last kid to hit it (I didn't even get a picture...). Poor Killian, Kendall and Callie never even got a chance to swing!
Once the candy was all picked up, it was back inside for one last game: Pin the Mustache on Mario!
Killian and Kendall won this game hands-down!
Time to sing!
If I had been thinking, I would have set the whole cupcake display in front of Jude and turned him around so everyone could see him, but when you're in the moment you don't really think these things through, so this was the best we got:
He picked his two favorite characters and we stuck a candle in each for him to blow out.
"Happy Birthday to you...!"
Yay!
Gift time!
Jude took home quite a haul!
It was a fun party! A little chaotic perhaps, but I think the kids had fun. They got to take home all the candy from the pinata, the chocolate coins from the goomba game, some Mario stickers, their hat/crown and their cupcake topper that I turned into a magnet so they could put it on their fridge.
After all the kids went home, we got to spend some time with our family that came into town.
Poor Cole finally got over his melt-down and was happy to be with all his favorite people.
He really liked the crowns!
And the decorations have become permanent fixtures in the boys' room:
Happy Birthday, Jude! I can't believe it's been four years since we brought you home. You fill our lives with joy and find a way every day to bring smiles to our faces. Your energy and enthusiasm for life is contagious. We sure love you! Thanks for being ours!
