Toy Story Mania!!

Finn's Birthday was yesterday, but his party was this morning. This was his first friend party.  I was feeling an immense amount of mom guilt because by this point the girls were on their 3rd major party. I wanted to make sure he felt really special. He is obsessed with Buzz and Woody and Toy Story in general. The idea of character parties is not my favorite but I knew nothing would make him happier. He loved the Toy Story ride at Disneyland so I decided to make the party a little more carnival and a little less character.

I found these invitations on a blog and was going to attempt to do my own version, but realized she had them available to download for free. I added my own red stripe in photoshop and printed them off. I love when people are generous.

I saw a picture on Pinterest of a party with signs similar to these and made my own in photoshop. I already had the aqua arrows from a newspaper bunting I'd made for a previous party.

I raided my fabric scraps looking for the birthday colors. I was lazy so I just cut them out with pinking shears and used mini close pins to attach them to some rickrack. My kind of project. Easy!!

I printed the subway art from the eighteen25 girls and brought down some of Finn's favorite toys for the entryway. Can you spot the birthday boy?

Here's a close up of the toys.

The table in the early set up stages.

We colored and put stickers on rockets and flew them with straws.

We hid 100 army men all over the downstairs and they went on a hunt for the army guys.

My friend Ashley lent me her giant board to make into a balloon popping station. They popped the balloons and candy/bandaids/confetti fell out. Notice the blue balloon that clearly had a slow leak in it

 

Marshmallow shooters were among the favorites for the kids. They were hilarious flinging marshmallows all over the house. I loved it when one of them dumped quite a few in, pulled the balloon back and they shot right in his face. He laughed and laughed.

We had Finn's choice for lunch. Hot dogs, chips, squeezer yogurts and lemonade. I made a big cake that did not turn out all that cute, and then LGM (or Alien Green Guys as Finn calls them) cupcakes.

Blowing out his birthday candles.

And finally, if you are still with me, here were the take home boxes (as seen on my cousin Jamie's blog). They were filled with Buzz Lightyear notepads, rolling stamps, stickers, toy story pez dispensers, etc.

I felt like his party could not have gone better. The boys were great, everything ran smoothly, we had the right amount of structured games, and some free time. I took it easy on myself in the food department and the kids liked it and I wasn't as stressed as usual.

It was really fun to see Finn soak it all in. I purposely did the party during Scarlet's nap time and while the older girls were at school so it was all about him. He spends most of his life overshadowed by his older sisters or watching them be in the spotlight.

Finn was SO happy. He hugged us over and over and said Thank You 102 times. It made the whole thing worth it. I sure do love that boy!