Sunday, February 21, 2010

Super Mario Brother's birthday party!!

After weeks of planning and crafting, Evan's 6th birthday party finally took place. I was so happy when he first chose to do Super Mario Bros. but when I went to find stuff for it I couldn't find much!! So I had to create pretty much every game from scratch. It ended up being a lot of work but I really enjoyed every minute of it! The actual party with the kids makes me more nervous than doing the prep work! We started off thinking there would be around 5 or 6 kids and ended up with 13!

Bare with me because I am going to post quite a few pictures. I had a really hard time finding stuff so maybe this will help someone in the future if they decide to do this theme!. I didn't include a lot of "kid" pictures because I am not sure how the parents are with having their children featured in a blog!

These were some of the character's that I made out of foam board for decoration. They are about 3 feet tall and worked great as wall art!Here they are trying to cross Bowser's balance beam. I wasn't sure how this one would go but the kids found it challenging so they kept retrying it over and over until they crossed without falling!Here is a picture of the cake for the "adult/family" party that we did after the "kid/friend" party. Yes I did 2 parties in one day but I kind of liked having it all done in one day this time. I made the goombas, stars and the pipes out of fondant.This is a birthday banner with pictures from birth to 6 years on it. I have always wanted to make one and finally got around to doing it this year. I love the idea of seeing all the changes in the kids!These were the "kids" cupcakes. I had planned on making them into the mushrooms from the game but Evan didn't want me to so we came up with this idea from another site that I had looked at. The kids really liked getting their own guy. I made the cake stand a few nights before the party by just cutting out some plywood and using things that I had around the house for the center support. It came out cute and I like that I can use it now for future parties!I had to include my beautiful niece in the pictures! She was enjoying a red topped cupcake quite a bit!This was pin the nose/moustache on Mario! With having so many kids I again wasn't sure how this would go but they all did great and seemed to really like it.We hid 144 "Yoshi" eggs in our basement and had the kids go on an egg hunt. It took about 3 nights of coloring green dots onto white plastic eggs and filling them with coins and stars but they loved it!! This was a Mario Bingo game that I made. The kids used theire gold coins from the eggs to cover up the characters. I made up a picture of each character and laminated them for future use! That way I could pull the card out of a bag and hold it up in case someone didn't know the proper name. The kids(and adults) enjoyed playing this a lot!!This was what they did when they first arrived. We made paper mache "Yoshi" eggs that the kids could color in the spots. Then they each got a bag that I had traced a character on and they colored those in too. The bags were to be used to collect the small eggs from the hunt in and then to store the coins and pinata candy in along the way. The large eggs had party favors in them that they could take home and smash open. Of course they liked that part!! This was another game that we called knock the goomba off of his pipe. I sewed the goomba which came out a little funny looking but they kids didn't mind!! I gave them 3 rice filled fire balls to throw at it and I have to say I think this was the favorite game. My kids are still playing it now!I saw this one on another blog and decided to make this one as well. We used "Boo" for a bean bag toss. I ended up making cardboard supports on the back and placed it on the floor so it would be a little more challenging.These are the mushrooms that we gave away as prizes for some of the games. The kids and I sat down one Saturday morning and made these from clay. They had so much fun coming up with all different characters, So that is most of the party day pictures! Please feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions. I hope maybe this helps someone in the future throw a fun Super Mario Brother's party!

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Egg allergy questions

We just found out that the culprit for my 2 year old's constant eczema and horrible itching is eggs. I was actually having him tested for a Penicillin allergy that the Pediatricin thought he had and when I was there I asked them to test for some foods. Thankfully the Penicillin came back negative which is great but I am VERY annoyed that if I hadn't pushed to have him tested he would have gone his whole life thinking that he was. I am allergic and it's a pain when you need an antibiotic because it really limits what you can have.

Anyway, now I finally know why he scratches himself until he bleeds and constantly says " I'm itchy"! I have tried so many different creams and lotions and could never figure out why the eczema would be good some days and then be all over him the next. The obvious thing to do is to stop feeding him scrambled eggs and homemade french toast which are both a staple in our house. The problem is that box after box of food that I look at all have eggs listed on them. Now the great thing is that he hasn't had a serious reaction so I don't have to panick about everything that he eats but I need to eliminate it as much as possible. So, if anyone has any suggestions out there I would love to hear them!