Valentine, you deserve a High 5! Sticky hand non-candy Valentine

Last minute as always, but we are finishing up our Valentine's tonight.  Between my boys I have to do over 50 Valentine's for their classes, so I like to find something inexpensive as little costs can add up quick.  I also like something unique and non-candy if possible.  Finding something that fits all of those can be difficult.

I'm pretty happy with how these turned out.  I grabbed a big bag of 72 Sticky Hands on Oriental Trading when they were having a free shipping special so paid less than $8.00 total.  My son has a February birthday so I am going to put the extras in his party bags.  

I love the photo Valentine's we did last year but wanted to do something really simple this year so just created a quick black and white card.  It took me less than ten minutes to do the little card and you know what - my kids still loved them.

The boys wrote their names on the back, I left the sticky hands in their individual wrapping and stapled them onto the card.  I wish you could see the hand a little better but this way they don't loose their stickiness (is that a word?). 

*The sticky hands I linked to are a little different then the ones I bought last month, but I couldn't find the exact ones I purchased. 

Up, up and away: 3 year old boy Airplane Themed Birthday Party

My little guy turns three in just a few days and it was time for a party.  For a number of reasons this was his first real party.  Dad, an airplane nut, who has been indoctrinating him suggested airplanes and little guy thought that was a great idea.

His requests were simple - airplanes, cupcakes and balloons.  

I designed the invitation and created a Garcia Airlines logo that I used  on all the printables. 

The party was at a local park.  I was surprised to find there weren't a lot of good ideas for me to steal be inspired by on pinterest and other sites. I decided to have the food match the theme and did "in flight snacks", "meal service", "beverage service". For the snacks I made up small cellophane bags of goldfish (one of my son's favorites), pretzels and found prepackaged small mixed nuts.  I added little toppers to the bags that used the Garcia Airlines logo.  I added some small tangerines, again a favorite of my son and small pb&j sandwiches cut with an airplane cookie cutter.  For the adults I made hoagie sandwiches, cut and wrapped them reminiscent of food you used to get on the airplane. We had cloud cupcakes decorated with marshmallow fluff (do not use... trust me on this one) and cotton candy.  The biggest hit of the menu was the cloud jello cups made with layered blue jello and cool whip. 

 

The party favor also doubled as the activity, a small inexpensive kite for each child. I picked them up for about $1 each and they were a huge hit.  We had about 30 people from 1-50 and almost everyone took part in the kite flying.  I would highly recommend and might use again for another child.  It was a very windy day which helped.  The park also overlooks the local Air Force base flight line which added to the "plane" atmosphere.    

The wind did kill a few of my decorations.  Although I bought helium balloons at the little guys request most did not survive very long nor could they be on the tables as planned.  Also my banner backdrop for the table became airborne! That will teach me to ever bring glass anything to a park no matter how much weight I put in the jar.  All and all it was a very fun birthday.  When I asked sweet little Sam for his favorite parts he said cupcakes, balloons, airplanes and fishes.  A success!

One of my goals for the year is to complete things.  In that light I actually did thank you notes!  If you know me, you know that is a big thing for me... I know baby steps.

Sharing over at:

Spiderman 4th Birthday

So my little guy (well... I guess not so little) turned 4 on Saturday.  He is OBSESSED with Spiderman. He actually introduces himself to people as Spiderman.  He has also convinced his 2 year old brother that he is Spiderman, ahh the joys of being an older sibling...

No surprisingly we did a Spiderman theme.  I think it turned out pretty good.  My camera skills (and camera) are no fabulous so you will have to bear with on that aspect of the post. 

the cake... Spiderman of course...

I used a 9" round and then carved it into the shape of spiderman's face/mask.  Once you place the white eyes and your first line down the center of the cake the rest is relatively simple.  I did have to learn that linking lines between the webs were like upside down c - straight lines look very silly.

TIP: If you need to carve a cake to get a unique shape (like spidey's face) bake the cake ahead and freeze.  It's much easier to carve a frozen cake, you get a cleaner cut and far fewer crumbs.

the rest of the menu...



One of my son's favorite things in life is the good old orange, straight from the box, mac and cheese.  I saw a cute picture of a hot dog cut like an octopus on top of mac and cheese and thought it would be perfect to fit the spiderman theme... for those of you that do not have a son obsessed, Doc Oc is one of the main villains. This was so simple.  Just microwave the hot dogs and then about make a cut in half about 2/3 of the length of the hot dog and then make a 2nd cut so that you get 4 "legs".  Prop up and for greater impact add some eyes. I used the red gel icing I had left over from the cupcakes but you could easily use ketchup.

Peter Parker Pizza (thanks to little Caesars), Green Goblin Salad, popcorn and a veggie tray rounded out the menu.  I somehow didn't get photos of the Green Goblin Salad but it was very easy to make. 

Green Goblin Salad
serves 10-12
2 small boxes of lime gelatin
3 cans of mixed fruit or fruit cocktail
2 cups of mini marshmallows
Recipe: Prepare the lime gelatin according to package instructions.  Refrigerate for 30 minutes and then stir in fruit drained canned fruit and marshmallows. Refrigerate until chilled. 

This was great because I easily made the night before so all I had to make the morning of the party was the mac and cheese. 

activities...

Popcorn... get your popcorn... I borrowed a cute popcorn maker from a friend that is a table top replica of an old fashion popcorn machine. I found red and white small bags at the craft store (by the gift wrapping supplies) and attached these little labels to match the spidey theme. The popcorn was perfect as both a snack before the main food since the party started at 10:30 and a little activity to watch it be popped. Plus my son loves popcorn. 

It was a pool party and most of the kids in attendance were either 2 and under or over 10 so I didn't plan a lot of games. We did play "Pin the Spider on the Spiderweb". My fabulously talented stepdaughter went above and beyond and created this great poster board. I was planning to just do a 2 minute spiderweb but she got all into and free hand drew spiderman's hand slinging the web.  My son thought it was awesome!