Happy 4th Birthday Jackson

My adorable little Jackson turns 4 in a couple weeks. Due to some scheduling conflicts, we had his party yesterday. Jackson requested a super hero party, which I resisted at first, but finally decided to just embrace it. Since it will be Jackson's last birthday here in Seattle and he has so many great friends here, I decided to go all out and throw him a big super hero party. It was a lot of work, but worth it. He had so much fun.

The Spider Man Cake

Pin the Arc Reactor on the Iron Man

Baylie didn't want to use a blindfold. She is so cute. As a side note, one of my favorite moments of the party was this girl during Super Hero Battle. Each of the kids got to pick a prize from the prize box. I tried to have the right mix of super hero prizes and girl prizes, and I thought it was a success when we got down to the final 2 kids, Tanner and Baylie, and we had one boy prize and one girl prize left. But then Tanner picked the purple shampoo instead of the super hero tattoos. I thought to myself, "oh no, poor Baylie." And Tanner's mom tried to talk him into giving Baylie the girl prize and taking the boy prize instead. And then Baylie interupted and excitedly explained that she WANTED the super hero tattoos. She was really excited about them, and I thought to myself, "Jackson should marry this girl some day."

The Super Villain Hideouts

Hulk cupcakes, chocolate with cream cheese filling.

One of Jackson's favorite gjfts, a talking Transformer mask, although he loved EVERYTHING he got. It was fun to see him so excited.

My handsome birthday boy. Notice the sweet Avenger's balloons? I got some awesome finds for this party on Amazon. Also, trying to drive a car filled with 20 helium filled balloons... not a good idea. I can't believe I didn't kill someone. I couldn't see a thing.

One of the party favors... spiderman tattoos

Jackson drew this picture. It's Captain America on top (notice the shield) and Iron Man on the bottom (see the arc reactor). When did he learn to draw like this? I was impressed.

The Hulk Pinata that I spent 3 days on, although it was totally worth it. I was nervous about a homemade pinata, but it cracked and broke perfectly and it was so fun. I told Tyler I want to make another one and we were trying to think of the next occassion that a pinata would be appropriate for. Halloween? End of Summer Party? Monday night dinner? We'll see...

The candy scramble

What a funny party. I probably won't ever put this much work into a birthday party again, but it was fun to do it once. Jackson sure enjoyed himself.

I'm posting a tutorial on the stuff we made for the party, since I had lots of people asking about the pinata/games/recipes. That post is below and has all the details.

And most importantly, Happy birthday, Jackson. I love you with all my heart and through and through :) I'm so proud of you becoming a big 4-year-old.

Avengers, Assemble!