Thursday, September 13, 2012

Decorations and Games



Each guest received a mask and a cape to take home. I made the capes by following this tutorial- they were SUPER easy, made out of mens tee-shirts and the only sewing required was to put the velcro on the neck.


Masks were all made out of stiff felt. I followed this tutorial, but I hot glued them instead of sewing and didn't double layer them. I already had the elastic, which I hand-stitched on, and Brian drew the cool spider and web on the spider man masks. The kids loved them and the capes!

Even little Nolers got his own costume. I bought the red onsie and made the Super Nolan emblem and cape. The cape has velcro at the top so it can come off.

These super hero pops have capes on their backs made out of stiff felt, but it's hard to see.

The first game was "Pin the Light on Iron Man". This is a blown up picture of Dallin (that only cost $1.69 to have made, cheaper than any superhero poster I could find)!


Jared's cousin Alicia brought her boys! I haven't seen her since we moved here and Jared has only seen her once at Emma's blessing, so it was really fun to have her over!
DR. DOOM!
Next, we went outside for "Superhero training"! Jared's cousin Kevin had emailed me earlier in the week to say that their girls could come to the party and could he and Kit help out? So I asked him to be the "Superhero Trainer" and lead the kids in this fun activity, which I also found online. First, he taught the kids some superhero moves, talked about their capes, lifted each kid up in the air and let them "fly" like a superhero, etc. He was perfect for this role!
And then he told them about Dr. Doom, who is a superhero villian that Dallin is facsinated with, when suddenly, Dr. Doom (Jared) appeared!!! (I made his costume out of a flat sheet we had, the hood out of the corner of the matching fitted sheet, and used a storm trooper mask we had that actually looks just like Dr. Doom's face, and the yellow is the stiff felt we already had).  Dr. Doom and the Superhero Trainer followed a script I found here.
I was video taping, but unforutnately didn't get any pictures when he first arrived. Dr. Doom laughed a very loud, evil laugh as he ran into the yard and told the kids the he was never invited to birthday parties, so he's going to blow up their party with these bombs, as he threw balloons that looked like granades onto the ground. (He said Dallin was staring at him in shock, fear, fascination, and bewilderment, and kind of had his arms out like he was holding the kids back to protect them, all of which made Jared start laughing so hard that he could barely keep saying his lines)! Kevin had a really hard time not laughing too as he was yelling for the kids to watch out for the bombs, etc., it was really funny! Then he ran away, as Kevin told the "superheroes" that they needed to save the party by stepping or sitting on the bombs to diffuse them. I was worried some kids might be afraid of popping balloons, but I think they all did it (except maybe Alicia's boys?) and went to work diffusing all of the bombs. (Brighton and Baby Darren were terrified of Dr. Doom and needed some comfort, but everyone else loved it)!
After all of the balloons were popped, Dr. Doom ran into the yard again and said, "So you diffused my bombs, but let's see if you can stop this poison from melting your party!" He then dumped a bag full of tin foil balls onto the ground and ran away again. Kevin made a big show of telling the kids to back up, don't touch the poinson, etc. He then handed each of the kids a pair of tongs and told them they needed to pick up the poison with the tongs and put it in the poison bucket behind them. They all quickly got to work, pictures below:

After all of the poison was contained, Kevin handed each of the kids a can of silly string, lined them up so that they wouldn't spray each other, and told them that if Dr. Doom comes back again, to spray him! He had them all practice to make sure they knew how to spray it, and waited for Dr. Doom, who soon made his third appearance! (I'm really mad at myself for overexposing these pictures, I was taking them so fast and not checking them that I didn't realize I needed to correct my settings until this part of the skit was over)!
Running into the yard as the kids started spraying him!
Kevin got caught in the cross fire!
I love Mia's face in this picture, they all had SO much fun with this!!!

He ran back and forth in front of the kids, falling and getting back up and running around some more, until their silly string ran out. It was so great!
I love Ryn's face in this one (above).
Look at cute little Dallin's face above, they seriously had so much fun!!!

After the silly string ran out, Dr. Doom ran away again. Kevin then had a talk with the kids about how Dr. Doom probably has never been invited to a party before, and did they all think they should invite Dr. Doom to the party and ask him to be good now? They all agreed and started yelling for Dr. Doom to come back and come to their party. Jared didn't remember this part of the skit though and had already taken off his costume and was walking around to the front of the house so I had to run and tell him, help him get his costume back on, and he went back to the kids and agreed to be good. He then hugged them all, which I was surprised they all wanted to do!
This was actually Dallin's favorite part of the party!! But he told me he knew it was just Daddy wearing a costume, which surprised me, and told me it was because he saw Daddy's shoes! This was a TON of fun, I would highly recommend it for a party!

Next up: Kicking and punching down walls
(I got all of these empty shoe boxes from local shoe stores). This was a lot of fun for the kids too. I told Dalln about it a couple days before and he was so dang excited!
(I bought one can of red spray paint to paint all of these 30 or so boxes, thinking I'd have plenty left over to paint a couple of picture frames I have too. Um, I guess I've never used spray paint before, b/c that one can didn't cover even HALF of ONE SIDE of all of the boxes. Oh well, still fun!

The kicking wall:
Supergirl Teya
Kit and Kevin's daughter Ryn

Alicia's little boy Adam
Super Dallin (had to teach him how to punch after this).
Mia (she had the punch down pat!).


While half of the group was punching and kicking down walls, the other half played 'Knock Down the Villians,' and then they switched. Lizzie stayed the night with us the night before the party helping me get a bunch of stuff ready and put together this whole game for me, made out of empty oatmeal containers. She was such a HUGE help!!!

They threw bean bags at the villians.


After these outside games, we walked inside to a very superhero surprise!

The Superhero Guests!!


Superhero birthday party continued...
When we walked back inside after the outside games, we had some SUPER surprise guests standing in our living room, all posed in their action hero poses (Spiderman was in a crouch)!! It's funny, even though Jared and I knew they were in there, we both said, "Whoa!" when we walked in and saw them standing there. It really was a pretty incredible sight, seeing these characters from the movies standing in front of us! It surprised everyone and it took a few minutes and a little encouragement from us for the kids to walk up to and meet each character.





After meeting the kids, the characters took turns showing the kids their "superhero moves". I asked them to do this because one of Dallin's favorite things to do is practice, or show us, his superhero moves (like in the videos I posted of him recently). I knew he would really love this!
Batman went first and had a ton of cool things to show the kids!
First, arm action


Batman let a couple of kids kick the "armour" on his legs. This is Dallin doing that here (above).

Batman showed how he could catch someone in his cape and wrapped it around Coey here. They (especially Coey and Dallin) LOVED this. Dallin still talks about it actually and just yesterday was telling me how Batman catches the bad guys in his cape.
Batman also had some cool tools in his belt that he showed the kids, like a pair of binoculars that he let them take turns looking through, and a bat blade thing. He said he made a bat (blade thing) for Dallin and gave him the one below. Dallin seriously loved this so much that he played with it for days over any of his new toys!

Next up, Spiderman! He started off showing the kids how he shoots webs.
And how he walks on his hands!
And then Captain America showed some of his moves.
And then Iron Man. I love how even Spiderman is doing the moves, all of the characters were so involved and SO awesome!!

Learning Iron Man moves

One of Dallin's other favorite things to do is to sword fight or "play fight", so I figured it couldn't get much better for a little superhero fan than to sword fight with real superheroes!! So we all went outside, handed the kids foam swords, and they fought the superheroes! They had SO much fun doing this that I had the hardest time telling them to come in to eat and only did because poor Batman was sweating to death!
Dallin and Captain America, Luke, Ryn and Spiderman

Elle and Batman
Mia, Coey and Spiderman
Teya and Batman
Dallin and Captain America. This picture makes me smile so big. When the superheroes were about to show the kids their superhero moves, Dallin was just staring at Captain America and said, "I could go get my shield!" I told him to go get it, so he ran as fast as he could upstairs and got his new shield. This kid melts me.
Kids: Eden, Teya, Dallin
Dallin and Luke LOVED it when Spiderman fell down "dead" during the sword fight.
The kids ended up chasing the superheroes around the yard, and the superheroes were running for their lives when there were multiple kids after them!
Teya and Spiderman
Mary and Batman
Spiderman and the birthday boy! He had the time of his life!!