Happy Halloween Birthday Party

I kinda love party planning- nothing gets me more excited than a good theme. So I was totally thrilled when Cordelia picked my absolute favorite thing as the theme for her 4th birthday party: Halloween. My my mind started racing with ideas- and thank goodness I have such loving siblings or it never would have gotten all done (since school was eating me a live up until 4 days before the party).

 I think that paper invitations are one of the coolest things- I really love a good invite, and even though everyone kept telling me to let this one thing go I just couldn't do it and I love how they turned out. I saw the idea on One Charming Party and we pretty much used her templates- but my nephew did the inside body a little different, and my sister  used her silhouette to cut everything out. 

Our apartment is a little too small to host all of our family friends and so each year we find someplace new to hold the birthday party- we have rented a community room at a friends place, held the party at my mom's, my brother and sister in law graciously let us use their yard, and this year we were able to use a room at Brendon's lodge. We were excited to use the lodge because with Cordelia gaining more neighborhood friends we really wanted to keep it super local and the lodge is in waking distance for most of them! Also no one had to clean their house- which is a total added perk. And we set up the night before which helped my sanity level immensely.  

We decked the place out with streamers, paper pumpkins Cordelia helped make, tons of balloons, and every Halloween decoration my mom and I own (which is actually kind of a lot). 

We ate pulled chicken sandwiches, mummy dogs, monster marshmallow pops, spider web decorated bean dip, cheese ball, pumpkin shaped rice crispy treats, monster cupcakes, and the coolest Maleficent barbie cake made by my sister. 

Each kid got to adopt their own monster- also made by my sister who loves me and likes to enable my crazy (if making 25 monsters for a birthday party isn't love I don't know what is)

Each monster came with a certificate for the kid to fill out- naming their monster and promising to take care of it. The kids really loved them- and it was especially fun to see what they picked for names. We had Boobo, Princess Patty, Kron Kron, Boo Boo Butt, Hydro, Gerbie, Lily, Octopus, Pickle, and a couple who hadn't been named yet. 

The kids got also got to decorate and take home a Halloween tote bag- donated from my boss and designed and printed by my brother. Hopefully the kids will use them for Trick or Treating come Halloween! They also got to color super cute coloring books (that I failed to photograph with my real camera) that had all sort of fun Halloween activities in them (made by my nephew and my sister Lori) 

Last, but not least was Monster Bowling! My brother and sister in law painted these bowling pins for the party and I cannot get over how  awesome they are. I keep trying to pick my favorite ones- but they are all soo cute!

As a prize for bowling the kids got bloody popcorn hands, and spider lollipops. 

 

Cordelia, Brendon, and I are soo grateful for everyone that helped us create, set up, and clean up for this party- you are all truly amazing. And thank you to all of our friends who came and helped us celebrate, we couldn't have picked more awesome people to help us celebrate another year in the life of Cordelia!