Super Mario Party!

So, the big day finally came this weekend...the boys' joint Super Mario birthday party.  They had a great time with all of their little friends!  I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked, but here are the ones I did take...

My Super Mario wall decor.  I ordered the wall clings from ebay.  The banner from birthday express.   And the rest of the scene, I made...the coin blocks, bricks, ground and pipe.  

Here are a few close ups of the wall... 

We played a couple of fun games.  At the beginning of the party, we had a Yoshi Egg Hunt using plastic easter eggs.  I hid gold coins inside the eggs for a fun surprise!

Another one of the games we played...Fireball Toss.  I made it out of a big box, some large oatmeal containers and a bunch of construction paper.  Turned out pretty cute I think!  They each got to throw 5 fireballs (I used the red balls from our ball pit balls).  And they won gold coins which they thought was pretty cool.  

Chow time!

Pinata!  Here's a link for the pinata I used.

I love how Jonathan has both of his hands full of candy...cute!

One of the games I was really excited about was a treasure hunt called 'Save the Princess!'  Since there are 8 worlds on the Mario game, I made clues coordinating with each world.  For example, World 3 is ice world on the game so, my clue said, 'Mario slips and slides on snow and ice, but penguin makes it really nice.  To get to World 3:  Find your favorite ice cream and tell us what you see!'  I had the next clue hidden in the freezer by the ice cream.  I bought these gold stars and taped my clues onto them.  This way the kids knew what they were looking for...a big gold star.  

I sent the kids all over the house...downstairs, upstairs, outside, back upstairs...all over!  It was a lot of fun.  The final clue led them outside to the side of our house where they found the princess sitting on top of a treasure chest with the last star which said, 'Yay!  You saved me!  You're the best!  Now for more Mario fun, open this treasure chest!'  Inside the treasure chest, I had all the kids' goody bags.  

The gold stars with their clues.

The treasure chest.  I covered a cooler with brown construction paper...it was super easy!  I had to use different shades of brown cuz that's what I had, but I think it worked.  

Why are there two princesses you ask??  The pink one, Princess Peach, is in regular Mario and the peach one, Princess Daisy, is in Mario Party.  Vann wanted to use them both...although he knew nothing about the treasure chest...I kept that a surprise!

All of the goody bags inside the treasure chest.

The cupcakes...here's my vent about the cupcakes.  I think the stand and the toppers turned out good.  The cupcakes, not so much.  I think they tasted ok...but their appearance was not up to par.  I made everything lactose free so, Chayce could eat it and well, frosting is hard.  I have yet to find a recipe I can decorate well with.  This one started out good.  I made it, stuck it in the fridge for a bit, then piped in on in a cute little swirl like I always do....but it started getting all melty.  My nice, pretty cupcakes became not so pretty.  Turns out...the lactose free butter I use is not solid at room temperature...good to know.  Maybe should've practiced this before the party.  Oh well, such is life!  I know now for next time.  And I meant to incorporate more little Mario guys on the cupcake stand, but time just got away from me and I barely remembered to snap a pic of the cupcakes at all.

The not so pretty cupcake display.

The cupcake toppers.  The kids loved these!  They picked their cupcake out by who was on the topper.  I bought the Mario stickers on ebay.  And click here for how I made them.  

Singing Happy Birthday to my little Chaycers.  He loved it!

Blow!  He needed some help with this.

Next up...my sweet Vannipants!  I love how he's smiling with his eyes...my friend Jen calls this smizing!

Make a wish!

Cupcake time!

I love how Chayce is eating his cupcake...too cute!

That was good!

Half of the boys' loot...they got totally spoiled!!

The other half...lots of really fun stuff!  I gotta tell ya...see that Perfection game...we played that all night long.  And by we, I mean all the adults!  

Aunt Casey helping Vann put together his Mario Kart Wii track.  Chaycers is holding his light saber and watching a movie on the couch.  Molly's there for moral support :)

Vann playing with a little Lego guy.

Chayce got this cool car that lights up...he loved it!  He would press the button and then jam out...adorable!

Vann checking out R2D2...Star Wars is a big hit in our house right now.

More dancing!

The boys sword fighting with their light sabers.

We even turned off the lights and had a fun light show!

Kinda cool pic!

 And that's it!  That pretty much sums up our party day.  The boys had such a great time!  My project this week is to make room for all of their new toys.  I have lots of rearranging, reorganizing and purging to do.  

Hope you all had a great weekend!

My Sunday

I got to wake up to the boys chattering again this morning...love this!  Once I got ready for the day, I frosted Elmo.  He turned out pretty good.  My favorite part about making cakes is seeing the birthday girl/boy's face when they first see their special cake.  Kayla's only 2, but her smile told me she loved it!  

Elmo cake

Sunday's are typically library day.  I return all the books from our previous week and load up with a ton of new books to go with our new theme, country, animals, etc for the upcoming week.  It takes me a good hour or so to get everything I need and make all my copies.  Our upcoming preschool theme is the Four Seasons.  The country Vann and I will be learning about is Brazil.  Can you believe they had no books about Brazil...zero, zip, zilch!  I was shocked.  They had a book about every other country in South America, but not Brazil...strange.  Maybe it was checked out...but I don't remember seeing it in their computer.  But I do look up a ton of books so, it's possible I just missed that it wasn't available which is why is wasn't on the shelf.  So, we have no books about Brazil...kind of a bummer.  I did grab a bunch about the rain forest...they have some pretty amazing pictures in them.  


After the library, we went next door to the party.  The boys had a ball in the jumphouse!  

Chayce climbing in the jumphouse

Vann climbing up so, he can slide down

Relaxing for a bit after he slid down...so cute!

Chaycers giggling after he slid down.

Yesterday, I mentioned finishing my cupcake toppers and I thought I'd post a pic of them...

Aren't these cute?!    

I ordered the Mario stickers from Ebay...then stuck them to colored cardstock...cut them out following their shape leaving a little bit of the color showing...used a 1.5" scalloped punch and punched out the scalloped circles on some fun cardstock...then hot glued a craft stick between the two layers.  I've never made anything like this before and I'm really happy with the way they turned out!  


I finished one of the party games today...yay!  And I filled the pinata...not a huge task, but one year I forgot to do it ahead of time so, we were scrambling last minute to get it done.  Anyhow, that's done.  I was supposed to order the food today...I need to get that done tomorrow for sure.  It's coming together...I'm checking stuff off my list...I'm feeling much less stressed.  


Oh, I almost forgot to tell you the reviews on the ice cream cake.  Billy liked it, but thought the bottom crust was too thick.  I thought it was just ok...but I'm not a huge vanilla lover so, that may have something to do with it.  I have a bunch of ideas to make it better next time.  I'm thinking a brownie on the bottom...can you say yum!  Also, more fudge layers.  And I'd love to get some caramel in there somehow.  A chocolatey ice cream middle.  More chocolate frosting.  Overall, it needs more chocolate!  


Hope you all had a great weekend!  I've got a busy week ahead of me.  But I'm very excited that both of the Grandmas will be coming to visit at the end of the week!  My mom will be here Friday and Chris's mom will be here Thursday.  We're excited to see them!