Holden's Superhero Birthday Bash

Sampling of the Decor

My kid loves superheroes. So the theme for this year's fête was easy. (Holden turned 4 on February 1st).

I have yet to give in and host a 'friend' party for my little guy, because by the time we invite first cousins, the attendee list is already eight-little-people deep (and that doesn't include parental "dates.") so family it is.

Captain Spears &
his self-made "Clown Mask"

Let me start off by Thanking the Academy, and Pinterest for giving me a host of options and ideas. I felt like it was easy to custom design Holden's party.

Liquid Superhero "Juice"

The best part for me was seeing Holden's excitement. As we were getting his 'Captain Spears' costume on, he said "this is going to be the best party ever!" Which totally brought me to tears because I had been working on it for more than a month, coordinating with my sisters and my sister-in-law about the date, and Cicely's kids (in town from Ohio) had come down with stomach flu and ear infections that morning.

Another collage:
Yes, some repeats

I felt sad for Holden, and even more sad for them ... They had been looking forward to it as much as we had. (We ended up celebrating with them a few days later so it all worked out--as it always seems to.

So here's the run down from Pinterest and what I used for party planning:

• Invites designed and 'customized' by The Patty Cake Press and I had them printed at Walgreens..
• Cake by my friend Ashlee Prisbrey of Topsy Turvey Cakes.
• Capes from The Southern Institute, though I used 'puff paint" from the 80s for a make-shift screen print using a freezerpaper-stencil.
• Masks were a free printable from Party Simplicity

The event flow:

Guests arrived to 'superhero training' and picked out a cape and decorated their own mask.

The AMAZING Cake:
Yes, I know we mixed DC & Marvel

Then went to our Fortress of Solitude in the basement for an obstacle course Danny had set up.

We returned upstairs for dinner (local free-range all beef hot dogs with vegan sourdough hogie-rolls for buns) and a collection of things Holden would eat ANY time: fresh strawberries, carrot sticks (no dip, just plain), seedless purple grapes, micro-brew (hfcs-free) rootbeer and Izzie sodas, and I even got chips for the occasion.

Holden and I had also made vegan chocolate cupcakes, because the kid loves frosting (though my frosting is never vegan), and I wanted to make sure our guests with egg allergies had a dessert option.

We did cake, ice cream and presents and it was a pretty perfect 60 -75 minute party.