Gabe and Elisa's birthday party was combined (again!) this year. I found a good deal on a blow-up bounce house/slide combo and decided that the end of April would be a great time to host the combined party. I tried to keep this party as simple and easy as possible, but I still had to make the pinatas and cake! That was stressful enough! I strongly considered buying a cake--but they're just so pricey and they don't even taste good, unless you like the taste of grease. So I didn't. I also made some party favors/pinata fillers, and luckily they weren't too time consuming. Well, the Minecraft swords perhaps were, but it didn't feel like it since I started on them weeks before the party, and I even had some help from Gabe. I also made hearts of Te Feti and hibiscus flower hair clips (I ordered some cheapy but cute flowers from Amazon and glued clips on that I got at Walmart--no picture of them, sorry) for Elisa's pinata.
The party was successful! We had a good turn out, the kids had a blast, and everything went smoothly. I was worried that it would be too chilly to have a water slide, but the kids didn't seem to mind a bit. It actually was better that it was a bit cooler that day (the rest of the weekends were a good 10 degrees hotter than the day of their party)--it was the perfect temperature for the adults that stayed and sat outside. The kids had an awesome fun time and got spoiled with nice presents!
Here are the pictures:
Here are the invitations. I ordered the image from Etsy and then printed them off from Shutterfly. We invited all of Gabe's class, and we were originally planning to invite all of Elisa's classmates but I was worried that the party would be just too much, so we instead just invited just the girls in Elisa's class. She also had her neighborhood friends, her dance class friends, and her church class friends. Luckily, the turnout was almost exactly even, 10 kids for Elisa and 10 kids for Gabe!
The Minecraft swords. They were a big hit with the boys!
Hearts of te fiti. See my other blog post
here .
Gabe's pinata, all filled! It was lucky for me that the kid's party was right after Easter--I got all that candy for 50% off! Yay! I didn't take a good picture of Gabe's pinata, stupidly. It was just a square diaper box that was decorated with red crepe paper. I bought herb cutting scissors (they have about 4 or 5 blades) and that was a good decision because it cut my time in half (no pun intended). For every 5 separate cuts I would make with regular scissors, I made one with these new scissors!
Elisa's pinata in the making.
All painted! I stupidly (again!) didn't get a good picture of the final product! I don't know why I keep (not) doing that!
The day of the party:
Erik surprised Elisa with a Moana costume (to wear for the party) and Gabe with a Nintendo Switch (to play at the party)
So happy to get their presents!
At about 10 am the bounce house/slide blowup combo was set up. The kids were fascinated. They played on that thing the entire morning before the party!
The snack table. You can see Gabe's pinata here.
The bounce house/slide took over our entire backyard!
The guests arrived! I liked that I didn't have to do hardly anything, that was great!
A cute little girl at Elisa's party that I thought looked a lot like Aaliyah!
Like last year, the girls had their own pinata, and the the boys had theirs. I love doing pinatas. Its a great activity, and the goodies also count as party favors! The boys loved their swords. I think the girl's liked the hearts, but I stupidly didn't make sure that the flowers were evenly distributed--one girl literally ended up with all but 5 (I had almost 20 in there!).
Present time! The kids sure got spoiled! Here is the picture dump. I'm not going to comment on every single one, but you can see the joy and excitement on their faces!
Time for cake! My cake was decorated so lamely, but at least it tasted good. It was three layers/flavors: vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry!
Cuties! I'm glad they had a fun birthday!
Ian enjoying the cake
A very fun birthday party! Though I do look forward to the day that I don't have to do these parties anymore! They are always so stressful, no matter how simple I try to make them. Maybe it's just me. But I'm very happy with how this party turned out.
Some after-party fun. The neighborhood kids came back (or stayed, I can't remember which) and dance and ate the edible apple-flavored bubbles:
That sure is a bunch of candy, but the pinatas look really nice, and Moana is beautiful, as well as the flowers! What a huge bounce house and slide! I thought the cake was a sheet cake you bought. At least Ian had a little fun eating cake. Fun party!
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