Lex's Super Duper 4th Birthday!

Lex is four.

He is still pretty obsessed with all things of the superhero variety. He decided he was having a Superman/ superhero birthday about a month ago and has stuck to it. So we sent out invitations:

Just designing & then printing invitations as regular 4x6 photos is my favorite way to do super-quick and cheap invitations. You can't beat 13 cents a piece!

  And then spent Sunday afternoon with this super almost-four-year-old:





And of course all his super friends:


Some of these superheroes seem better equipped than others for heroic deeds. That's all I'm going to say about that.

This was the first birthday Lex wanted to invite friends (that he wasn't related to). He was soooo excited about this. One of the highlights of the day was definitely having his buddy James come over and play.

He already asked if he could come over and play again so he didn't have to wait all the way till his next birthday.

When the guests arrived Azia and Zoran and Jenna helped them make their superhero ID badges complete with a photo, fingerprint, superhero name and power, as well as the name of their arch nemesis.

Deciding on their superhero names for their badges.

So of course they had to make their own before everyone arrived to make sure they had all the supplies they needed ready to go.

Azia taking a photo of Zoran for his badge.

Getting everything ready: 
We break out our best serving dishes for parties (and even try to remember to take of the $1.38 price tags), Lex's super-duper super hero cake, Azia preparing her "Captin Amarica" fruit salad (blueberries and strawberries in whipped cream). Zoran was in charge of the Kryptonite punch.


Since we moved the party to from Saturday to Sunday, the kids and I spent most of Saturday evening making all sorts of little things for the party. They all love this sort of thing. I think it sort of makes the party stretch out for a few days rather than just a couple hours.

Azia made a bunch of these superhero tootsie pops. Of course she got bored with the generic mask and cape after a few and then made specific superheroes (Superman, Batman, Green Lantern . . .) and then moved on to other characters (Uncle Sam, Abe Lincoln, a samurai . . .). If only they had a "crafting" subject in school, maybe I could get her interested in what's going on there. She also helped me make a bunch of masks and capes. She and Zoran created a paper mache dumbell for our superhero obstacle course, and superhero signs to label all the food. We used the leftover supplies from the bottle cap necklaces we made last year at Zoran's Punk Rock Birthday Bash to make superhero necklaces.

They also hid about five dozen "bad guys" (little green aliens) all over the house for another game they organized and ran.  All the little superheroes had to find and capture all the bad guys to keep everyone safe.

hunting for bad guys

Iyezk and Zoran: super duo.

Dev and Brian set up an obstacle course for all the little superheroes. But of course the slightly bigger superheroes couldn't be left out, so most of the kids had to try it out a few times. And of course as everyone else went through Lex flew around in the wrong direction, cutting people off, wiping out and jumping off obstacles. It didn't seem to bother the other superheroes. They had very impressive concentration.

Spidy-Iyezk showing off his huge muscles.

KaNana & Kyle: Probably most amazing superheroes had a big brother to help them along the way.

Captain Zoran America. Yeah he can throw the big weight up and catch it with one hand. No big deal.

Wonderwoman chasing the bad guy.

The older kids sort of like this weapon, too.

The bad guy came after Lex. Good thing he had his buddy to help him clean up afterwards.

I gave some of the older kids the task of blowing up some more balloons so all the kids could take one home. Handing over a tank of helium to this gang wasn't the wisest move ever:

After I realized there was an awful lot of high-pitched laughing and squealing and screeching coming from their area of the room, I realized they hadn't actually filled up any balloons. When I pointed this out to them they said "We did!" and pointed to one miniature one with no string up at the top of the two-story ceiling and laughed again with their squwaky helium voices. I suppose it was good we were able to provide some fun for the older gang as well.


Sometimes we have an excessive amount of pinata breaking around here. But it was Lex's birthday and it seemed like we really should give him the opportunity to smash something without getting in trouble. It is one of his favorite things after all.

Dev in charge of the present opening:

Kids watching Lex's birthday movie:

I still do the big photo books for the kids each year and they (and I) love those, but these movies have become a pretty great tradition, too. They only take a couple hours to put together and now that everyone has ipods & ipads they watch them all the time throughout the year. Also, they're free! Printing books is so expensive. I'm still waiting on a coupon or deal to print both the boys' for their birthdays this month. It's great to have a way for them to enjoy some of their photos without spending any money.


Lex's 2010-2011 movie:

Isn't it great YouTube picked this shot of my boy looking so sweet for the thumbnail? He was just so excited to find this carved knife in all the necklace trinket stuff at the booth at PowWow. Oh well, he did pick ACDC and Ozzy Osborne songs for his video so it probably all fits together well. 

Movie watchers

After the party we set all the superheroes loose.

Dynamic super-sister duo!

There is probably one working on keeping the world safe somewhere near you.