When I asked Brooke and Harrison what they wanted to do for their birthday party this year, without hesitation Brooke answered that she wanted a superhero bounce house party and that she wanted to invite her friends. Harrison wholeheartedly agreed. I'm glad they made the planning part easy for me.
They had 12 kids in their preschool class they invited, plus another 8 kids from our neighborhood, and then family friends on top of that, so there was the potential for us to have 25-30 kids at their party. We of course knew not everyone would be able to make it, but we still decided it would be a good idea to do two separate parties. A kids' party followed by a family and friends party. The kids' festivities started at 1 and family started showing up at 4. It made for a long afternoon, but it was great to only have to plan for one party, plus we never had more than 20 people here at one time.
Harrison knew he wanted to dress up at Spiderman and Brooke was pretty sure she wanted to be Wonder Woman. They also love Batman, The Avengers, and all the DC Super Girls. Rather than try to incorporate all of their favorite characters, I decide to keep it simple. Black and white, primary colors, pop art.
We rented a Justice League bounce house, but I knew we would need a couple games on top of that. We spent the weeks leading up to the party building a city out of empty boxes, gray kraft paper, and card stock rectangles. The kids got to Hulk Smash the boxes. It started out a little crazy, imagine 12 kids all punching and kicking boxes at the same time, but once we got everyone settled and ready to go one at a time, it went really well. They all took turns knocking down the boxes and then building the city back up. We also did Spiderman game where the kids got to spray bad guys with their web (silly string), and a coloring station for anyone who wanted something less active. The only kid who colored was Brooke. :) Mostly though, the bounced.
We kept the food really simple. Fruits, veggies, cheese and crackers, and some snack mix during the kids' party. Then we ordered pizza during the friends and family party. I usually order cupcakes from a local bakery, but I knew I wouldn't have time to run out there the day before the party, so we got cupcakes from Kroger and they were delicious.
Overall it was a great party. I wish I would have documented some things better. I snapped a few pictures with my iPhone and I adjusted the settings on my camera and gave it to Rob to take some pictures. In hind sight, giving your camera illiterate husband your DSLR while it's on manual may not be the best idea if you want pictures with the correct exposure. If that's my biggest worry from the party though, I'd say we're lucky. We managed to have 15 kids in our house, most of them unchaperoned, and we survived.
It was so much fun celebrating our little superheroes, and we're glad we had so many of ours, and their, friends and family join us for the fun.
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