Planning a super hero party

So Alex turns 6 in just under 4 weeks!

Not sure where those years have gone!!

Anyway I must be mad as the invite have gone out to 15 children saying to come here for a party at our house on his birthday! Ouch, wine will be drank after it! We just couldn't afford a 'proper' party and there is no way I am spending £200+ on a party even if I had the money! Luckily Alex did only want people at ours anyway.

I am starting to panic slightly on how I will actually cope with it, I have roped in my Mum (an expert with children after working in a nursery for many years!) and have told James he has to be home to help too!

So a house party like this needs much forward planning, he wants to have it Avengers/superhero themed so pinterest was my first stop for ideas!

Lots of them are from American sites where they have huge house and back yards with lovely weather, obviously a party in November doesn't have that luxury so I had to be quite selective!

Here's some of my ideas I have found so far on my board.

I think to begin with I will get them to decorate a mask, as you can quite often be waiting for people to turn up which makes party games slightly more difficult. I just need to decide whether to use some of my felt supplies, or just stick to card...

Then I think I will do 'pin the star on captain America's sheild' or pin 'Batman's logo on his body'.

Before food I think I might snatch this idea I found, pass the kryptonite (green glow stick) and then whoever ends up with it gets out and then gets ready to sit down for food. It also saves buying a present for pass the parcel too which is a winner in my eyes!

There are some fab other games too but not sure I can cope with them with lots of kiddies in a confined space we shall see, Alex wants to play musical statues etc too so I am sure we will.

Alex wants an iron man cake, I have discouraged him wanting the full iron man so he has agreed to just have the face...must save I am a little nervous about doing it so any tips greatly received!!

I may make this punch box so they can grab their party bags before they leave in a bit of a hulk smash kind of way...

Alex turns 4!

This Wednesday Alex turned 4, FOUR!

First off where have those years gone!?

We've seen Alex grow up so much this year, becoming a big brother to Sam and taking on that role brilliantly Sam adores him and it's wonderful to see them interact so well with each other, looking back at photos of this last year, I think he has really changed over the last few months, looking like such a young boy now, far from the pre school image of yesteryear.

This year it was all about Hot Wheels, Disney Cars and LEGO! These have been Alex's main loves, he got his first simple Hot Wheels tracks last year, but this year we got him one with a loop and a noisy part that powers up the cars (think I might regret that!) plus some bits that fire out other cars! The last 6 months he has been really obsessed with Disney Cars, he loves it and would watch them over and over again if I gave him the chance-I think I know Cars 2 to word for word now-so that was a loose theme for his party. LEGO has appeared to become very popular with him since we bought him his first LEGO starter in London this year, and he was very lucky this birthday as ended up with quite a lot of it!!

It was lovely to have Wednesday morning with all of us home for a few hours, present opening on the bed, and a bit of time to play with the new toys before Alex had a few hours at preschool. We had a family party at home with the Grandparents and some of Alex's Uncles.

On Friday we had our NCT friends over that we see regularly. We couldn't afford to have a 'proper' party elsewhere and with friends from preschool as well as our close friends which I felt a little guilty about but at the same time I don't believe you have to spend much on parties and think a lot of them are getting out of hand cost wise these days. Alex didn't seem to mind too much anyway, and enjoyed playing the party games and having an indoor picnic. For what we did for his party please see this post!

For now, Happy 4th Birthday Alex, you are growing up far too fast!