Super Logan's Birthday Celebration

So, my sweet baby boy turned 5 in June. I had asked him months prior to his birthday what "theme" he would like. I was hoping he would say "Spiderman" or "Star Wars" or something that would allow me to just purchase fantastic decorations to make my life easy. Ha! I should know better. He requested Super Mario. We have a deep love for all things Mario in this household that dates back to the early pixelized Mario from the original Nintendo days, so I was more than happy to oblige. He had also been letting us know that he wanted to go bowling for his birthday. So... we decided to get crazy and do 2 parties. The first one was on the morning of his birthday and we held it at the bowling ally and invited 8 of his closest little buddies. Then later that night we did a BBQ for local family at our house.

I immediately got to work researching decorations, invites, balloons and any other way I could make this super special for him. I found an awesome invite on Etsy -

(Sample of the printable invite I ordered)

This gal - Mandy at Scribbles by Park Avenue  - was so unbelievably awesome to work with. I would HIGHLY recommend her. I also ordered a printable Super Mario pennant style birthday banner from her and it was amazing. I just lined it with primary colored card stock to help each triangle pop out a little better and hand-tied each one with a royal blue colored ribbon. You will see it pictured below. (I was in no way compensated to leave fabulous comments about Mandy with Scribbles by Park Avenue. I'm just a VERY happy customer who received excellent customer service from her!)

I LOVE birthday decorations and really believe that they help make the birthday extra special for whoever is celebrating. I found 32 Super Mario images online and printed them out on 8.5x11 card stock and then printed the mirror image, cut them out, attached some fishing line and hung them from the ceiling along with red and yellow crepe paper and black construction paper chain links. Those were to represent the chain from the "chain chomp" character. I am a glutton for punishment, what can I say? I may or may not have spent a small fortune on ink cartridges.

Family Room Decorations. Forgot to take a picture of the kitchen :(.

The birthday boy on the morning of. He was SO excited to be 5!

My son is not a fan of birthday cake. He may or may not have told his preschool teacher that he was allergic to cupcakes so he didn't have to eat one at a class party. He definitely doesn't get that from me! That lead me to decide not to make him a birthday cake for his bowling party. I went with a Super Mario themed candy "bar". We had about 6 different buckets of candy and each child got to fill a bag full of whatever they wanted. We had stuff like "Bowser's bubble gum", "Luigi's Lifesavers", and "Star Power Skittles" just to name a few. I was also able to find Mario themed balloons on Ebay that I had my local Party City inflate for me.

And for the part I am most excited about to share... the FAVORS!!! I LOVE practical, fun and useful favors. Nothing drives me more crazy than to send people home with a bunch of junk that gets thrown in the garbage. I might as well just take a big wad of money and chuck it in the trash. My mind had been working in creative overload and out of the blue it struck me. Make each kid his own Mario shirt... and a mustache. PERFECT! I found white t-shirts on sale for $1.99 at AC Moore, purchased a set of printable iron-on transfers with my 40% off coupon and got to work. I talked with Logan about which Mario image he wanted to put on the shirt. He couldn't decide between 2 so we thought we'd do one on the front and one on the back. Why not? I also added each child's name to the back of his shirt as well to make it even more personalized. I was able to fit both images and the child's name on one page of transfer which worked out really well. Then, while shopping at Dollar Tree I came across packets of 7 different mustaches for only $1. I got each kid his very own packet of mustaches. So... upon arrival to the bowling ally we gave the kids the option to change in to their brand new Mario shirts and they also had fun trying on their mustaches throughout the party as well. All in all each gift bag only cost me about $3.50/$3.75, which is awesome and it's something that they will be able to wear for a while. Love it and so did Logan!

Bowling Party - You can slightly see the candy "bar" in the back ground.

Some party goers in their shirts (the front) and their mustaches.

Back of the shirt

The Princess of the Party

Miss Raegan wanted in on the action

The big boys wanted their very own Mario t-shirts as well.

The Super Birthday Boy

The kids had a fantastic time running around, being crazy and bowling a little. They loved that they got to wear the same shirt as the birthday boy. I think it gave them an extra sense of camaraderie and made them feel special too.

Since there was no cake to stick the candle in, we had to get creative. One of the moms gave me the idea to melt the end of the candle and that helped it to adhere to the plate.

Happy Birthday my sweet son. You are a gift and a blessing from the Lord, hand picked just for our family and I am GRATEFUL! Have a wonderful year of growing, learning and being the fantastic kid that you are.
Love always and forever, Mommy

~ If you are interested in any of my Mario party ideas and would like an iron on printable or any suggestions for your Mario party feel free to leave a comment with your email address. ~