Hayden's Birthday Party

Hayden's birthday is July 3rd but since he has started school we have his party about a month early to prevent the "year end" school rush.   Back in March I started asking him what he wanted to do this year.    To my surprise he said rock climbing.  When I started to look for a place I was surprised to find a few different options and we finally settled on Westside Recreation Centre .  What an awesome facility and I would definitely recommend it for a birthday party.  The climbing wall was great, we had an awesome party room from afterwards and the staff was very helpful.

Hayden wanted a Super Mario theme which turned out to be really easy as the market is saturated with stuff.  For the loot bags I just ordered a package from Celebration Express in the US.  In past years I have spent hours trying to come up with neat stuff for the loot bag so this year in order to save time I just went the easy route.  The kids loved them and I think I actually came out ahead as far as cost.  Each pack cost me approx. $5 then I added the plastic water bottles for $3 each.  Here is a link to the loot bag and water bottle.  For 14 loot bags, 15 water bottles, 4 mylar balloons & shipping/duty my total was around $155.

I had grand plans for the cake but with everything that happened the week leading up to the party I had to shelf those until his actual birthday in a few weeks. So we went with plan B a simple cake and cupcakes.

I made a mushroom cake.  I used a circle and square pan to make the cake.  Hayden requested chocolate so that's what the cake was made of and used the Wilton's buttercream icing on top.

I knew there were a number of kids that didn't like chocolate so I whipped up some cupcakes in vanilla and a few with the leftover chocolate mix.

To make the cupcake toppers I found Mario images on the internet and just shrunk them down to small ovals.  We printed and cut them out.  Two images were glued back to back with wooden stick in the middle.  They were a huge hit at the party.

For lunch we served a few pizza's in keeping with the italian theme of Mario.  We provided water and juice to drink.

Here are a few pictures of the kids on the actual climbing wall.

        

There were quite a few of the kids that had never climbed before but in the end everyone tried it and they all did great.

We actually finished everything with about 10 minutes to spare and this was by far the easiest party we have ever hosted.  I have learned a few things during the last 7 years and one of the most important things is to just keep it simple.  With 3 parties to have every year I need it as simple as possible.