Boo at the Zoo 2011

Big Red invited us up to check out his 2011 Boo at the Zoo display on Saturday night.  We took his boys up with us since they hadn’t seen it yet either.

I have to say the fire pit was a nice addition and will hopefully lead to some new business for him.

Of course the boys ended up with gobs of candy from trick-or-treating around the zoo.  I might just have to pay some of it forward on the 31st when kids come to our door 🙂

Our past Boo at the Zoo visits can be seen here and here.

Check this video out.  Big Red and Auntie Jo are at the 0:06 sec. mark and Cutie Pie’s t-ball assistant coach/team sponsor is toward the end with his little Snow White :-)!

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Ginger Shack

There’s no time like the present (January 1st to be exact) to tackle a leftover Christmas project.  J was lucky enough to help us out with this one!

It was messy.

It took a lot of effort to keep it together.

And in the end our gingerbread house looked nothing like the pictures on the box…  But it was fun and that’s all that matters!

Two seconds after I took the last photo the entire house fell down.  Oh, well 🙂

Super Mario Bros. Birthday Bash

We had an early birthday bash for Wildman at our house on Sunday.  The theme?  SUPER MARIO BROTHERS!  It’s his latest obsession.  I knew nothing of Super Mario Bros. prior to planning this party so I consulted the Internet for some ideas.  Most of my inspiration came from here and here.

The children each got their own Mario or Luigi hat and mustache.  I had some tiaras for the girls to be Princess Peach.

I made felt mushroom head pouches for the children to keep their collected coins in.  There was no sewing involved!  Score!  We played several games for gold coins: a Yoshi egg hunt, zip-lining onto colored squares that had coins taped to the back and the pinata was loaded with them!  The child with the most coins won a Mario t-shirt.  The winner was Wildman’s friend, O, who collected a whopping 35 coins!

One of the Yoshi eggs contained a “w”.  The person who found that lucky egg won a Mario Bros. cartoon DVD.

The children also played ladder ball for a prize of a Christmas book.

I served lots of veggies and dip, that awesome pineapple salsa, queso, pizza, lime sherbet/7-up punch, as well as lots of beer and wine for the adults.  A paper pieced goomba marked the adult drink tub.

In lieu of a sheet cake or layered round cake, I made mushroom head cupcakes.  The white dots are white chocolate discs used for melting and making lollipops.  I made 3 dozen cupcakes for our herd of 20 children.  Half were white cake and half were carrot cake.  All were a hit!

Luckily the weather cooperated and we had gorgeous sunny skies for the party!  It rained at 11 AM and by 2 PM (party time) all the bad weather had moved out.  Whew!  I didn’t know what I was going to do with all of those people if it rained.  All of our games took place in the yard!  I’m so glad it all worked out.

I made each child a Yoshi treat bag to fill up with their choice of candy from a candy buffet that I had set up on our glass dining table.  The kids were over the moon to get to choose their treats.  I had containers of chocolate coins, Mario fruit snacks, rainbow lollipops, rainbow candy canes, Sunkist gummy candies, gumballs, and extra mustaches laid out for them.

I’d definitely call this party a success!  I had fun preparing for it and the kiddos had a blast all afternoon long.  But given how much effort I put into making all of the favors and decorations, I think I’m going to institute the every-other-year birthday plan.  Next year, I think the boys will get to choose a fun family activity for their birthday.  It’s exhausting hosting birthday parties!!!