Our house has been infiltrated with turtles since then. Buddy lives & breathes Ninja Turtles. And it just so happened that Nickelodeon created a new cartoon TMNT series last Fall so our DVR has been recording those bad boys every since. Buddy has pretty much been wearing this outfit for the past 6 months, as well.
Anyway, it came as no surprise that Buddy requested a TMNT themed 4th birthday party. Now, birthdays are kind of a big deal in our house which I realize is not the case in every family. I grew up with my Mom making a pretty big deal out of all our birthdays and even now as an adult, I feel like your birthday should be recognized as a national holiday. And I'm only half kidding. Just ask Mr. Fix-it. :)
So I tend to spend the few months leading up to each of my children's birthdays scouring the Internet for ideas based on their theme of choice. Of course, given their ages, Mommy has been the one picking their birthday themes so far. When Buddy chose Ninja Turtles as his theme, I realized what a challenge I would have before me. You see, party stores didn't carry a ton of TMNT stuff like they did other party themes like Dora, (ugh, that girl is literally everywhere. She's even on Corky's pull-ups.) Sesame Street, Sponge Bob, etc. There were some basic party items at Target but I was having a hard time finding party favors, balloons, and for goodness sake NONE of our grocery stores carried a Ninja Turtle cake. I mean, seriously?
Plus, Mr. Fix-it has me on these birthday party budgets. It's waaayyy too easy to go overboard on birthday parties and I may or may not have gone overboard a time or two before, which was fine when we had 2 incomes, but not now. So I set out to find as many do-it-yourself ideas as possible for Buddy's party. Plus, it's always more fun to be original anyway. (and I was NOT going to pay $10 for a Mylar Ninja Turtle balloon off Amazon which is the only place I could find the stinkin' balloons to match his theme)
So alas, here are some pictures of his party. Which by the way, I should add that it was a monsoon that weekend and I'm literally surprised we didn't wash away. Also, I am grateful we chose a local INDOOR play place to host his party rather than having 20 kids running in and out of the mud at my house. Though, because of the monsoon, it appeared that everyone and their brother decided to have their birthdays at the same play place. On the same day. At the same time. So that was super fun.
You live and learn.
I had a great time planning the party. The kids all had fun playing & celebrating Buddy's birthday. Now only if the weather had cooperated. Oh well. :)
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| Buddy helped me make these. And we stayed up well past midnight, but it was a lot of fun. Funny thing about these cookies is that we got so busy at the party that we didn't even set them out on the food table. Oops! |
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| I found these cute little party favor boxes on Etsy. They personalized the sticker for me so that they would look like little pizza boxes. Because everyone knows the Ninja Turtles totally love pizza. dudes! :) |
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| This is a sugar cookie I made, covered in red frosting, with shaved white chocolate as the "cheese." (I used a block of baking white chocolate and just grated it on a regular cheese grater) The toppings are red hots & green gummy bears made to look like pepperonis & green peppers. We gave these out as favors. |
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| TMNT cupcakes! |
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| We used dollar buckets from Target & painted them to look like the turtles. Then we used them for chips at the party. He was pretty proud of those buckets and still uses them in the playroom now. |
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| Since I wasn't about to spend $10 per balloon on Amazon, I decided to make our own. I just used crepe paper, white & black construction paper to look like eyes, and I just drew on the mouths. But the sad thing is, these balloons totally deflated in the car while waiting for our party room to be ready. (the humidity from the monsoon) so I couldn't even use them. Ugh, all that hard work! |
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