Princesses and Superheroes Party

Last weekend we hosted a Princesses and Superheroes party in celebration of Little Monkey’s 3rd birthday and Baby Boy’s 1st birthday. Of course since it was also nearly Halloween, we invited all our nearest and dearest to help us celebrate all these occasions and guests were asked to dress up in theme. Most of the 70 odd guests came in themed attire, though there were a few dads ( four in particular) who did not abide by our request ( I don’t think I’ll invite them next year  – just kidding!!). I spent the last month gathering all the decor items to combine the princess and superhero theme and enlisted a couple friends to help me create a pinterest board with all sorts of inspiration. Click here to see our board!

I dressed up as a Super Princess, creative right? Baby Boy was Superman and Little Monkey was Belle (though Elsa is her favourite Princess). The hubs decided to be Wolverine though things backfired when his claws weren’t very safe near the kids! The cutest costume was a baby decked out as Princess Leia (click here to see how you can make that with an old t shirt!). I was pleasantly surprised when even the grandparents arrived in theme! Everyone got into it and most had fun getting dressed up for the party. The backdrop for our party was a large condo party room that had ample space for kids to run around and corners for adults to enjoy conversations at with a view of the kids.

Decor

The dollar store was my best friend for sourcing decor items. I learned my lesson last year with the Elmo party and this year I ensured the cheap stores had decor items to fit our theme. A quick Walmart and Target run also helped tie together our event space and luckily I had quite a few friends and family members around to put their creative twist into decorating everything from our food table to the ceiling! Slapping stickers of the princesses and superheroes was an easy way to decorate and the best part was that Little Monkey now has those hard decals in her bedroom. Double win!

Drinks

We kept thing simple this year and offered our guests beer and wine. There were no cocktails which meant that I didn’t have to spend time mixing drinks. White wine and a full stock of Spearhead‘s line up was in our self serve fridge and red wine was on a counter near by. Guest were to write their names on their cups and sticker it up with princesses and superheroes. Spearhead was definitely a favourite, even amongst non beer lovers. We offered guests the Moroccan Brown Ale, Belgian Style Stout and Sam Roberts Band Session Ale. I’ve always been a fan of Spearhead’s Moroccan Brown Ale and I’m now a huge fan of the Belgian Style Stout. It’s pretty delicious and great for parties when you’d like to have more than one or two. That said, most folks were all about the Sam Roberts and not just because of the pretty label! This easy drinking session ale, which is just rolling into stores, was the most pictured item at our party! Don’t worry, I didn’t forget the kids. I had organic milk and every type of fun juice available. Think Guava, Pomegranate, Passionfruit and Lychee.

Entertainment

This year we didn’t hire any characters but instead cranked Disney tunes and let the kids play amongst themselves. I had a play area designated for the crawlers and threw a bunch of toys for Baby Boy and his friends. Little Monkey and her friends had plenty of space to run around, play with dolls and we had stuck gel decor on a mirror which they all loved to play with. I highly recommend gel decals for toddler parties! Our party started at 5 p.m. and went until 11:30 p.m and we had kids in and out all evening long. Spreading the time out also meant that we didn’t have too much of a rush and most with kids came early and those without arrived a bit later. We also had a separate room for Baby Boy to nap in (brought our Phil & Teds crib) and some others to breastfeed at and of course a full area for stroller parking.

Food

The focal point of any of our parties is the food and this Princesses and Superheroes Birthday party was no exception. The food was laid out on a table and everyone was able to help themselves throughout the evening. A friend of mine had left over tulle and ribbons from her wedding so we used them to decorate the table and tossed some Christmas lights under the table. I did a mix of catering and making our own and let’s just say that we had plenty leftover. Sri Lankan dishes were ordered from Babu Catering and two Bengali dishes from Rimi’s Cafe. We had about 50 adults and 30 kids and I ordered a 7 item menu for 40 people. Way too much food, I’ll have to order for 30 people next year to ensure we don’t have leftovers to feed another 20 people! In addition we had some frozen party packs as back up and pulled a few of those out when I realized that the food was too spicy for the kids! Doh!!

The kids loved the Superhero Pizza we made. These were super easy to make which means I plan to make these again. I bought a ready made base and sprinkled mozzarella cheese and then placed peperroni to shape out spiderman and used olives for the eyes. We were hoping to make Batman but then opted to make the symbol with olives since it was much easier to do so. Definitely a hit!

Cake

I love cupcakes and enjoyed making the pull apart ones for the 1st birthday and the Elmo party so I enlisted a friend to help me decorate some this year. We made a pull apart figure 1 for Baby Boy and placed these cute edible rice paper superhero cut outs. For Little Monkey’s figure 3 we kept it simple since we had edible princess cut outs which all the kids wanted to eat. I ordered the edible rice paper decals from e-bay and they shipped within a month to Canada. They don’t spoil easily and stayed on the cupcakes for over two days without melting.

Giveaway

The kids received way more gifts that we ever expected. The no gift rule apparently isn’t something people like to listen to! As a thank you prezzie for everyone who attended we gave each kid a personalized Chocolate Lollipop from Branded Bites. We loved these Bites when we received one this summer and knew we had to order them for our party. Everything was done online and they shipped right to our house with no issues. We wanted a mix of princess and superheroes but given usage rights of Disney images we sourced free generic images and then put stickers on the outer case. Every kid was eager to take one home and we also passed out a few extra stickers that were lying around at the end of the evening. Branded Bites is definitely on my supplier list for personalized cookies and chocolate!

Needless to say, the next day  I felt like I had run a marathon (well… that’s what I THINK running a marathon would feel like) but a good time was had by all. We got in plenty of pictures but the one thing I missed was having a professional photographer to click some pictures of the decor items and general ambiance. When you’re running after kids and guests it’s the last thing on your mind!

We’ve completed a year with two tots and so here’s a BIG cheers to us! Clink*Clink*