A party for a Super Hero. Part 1

Our Rylan is ALL boy.  He is REALLY into superheroes, which is very interesting and fun to us since Brodie has always been more into building towers with blocks or Lego's than dressing up as a powerful caped person.  LOL.

So, since he really wouldn't have it any other way, for Rylan's 5th birthday last week, we threw him a little Captain America birthday party. 

I had fun putting everything together, and we really lucked out on the red, white, and blue decorations.  Our local party supply store had all of the Fourth of July Patriotic stuff on clearance, but it worked perfectly with a Captain America theme.

A photo backdrop I painted hung on the wall and I set up the art project area on the dining table.

In the kitchen/family room area, I set up a drink station to the right and had our hotdog bar fixings on the bar.

I didn't take a big photo of the hotdog bar.  I meant to do it after the hotdogs and buns were in place, but by then we'd started doing activities and I got distracted taking photos of the kids.  :)    I did manage to take photos of each of the food labels during setup though.   I found the little yellow bowls on the clearance aisle of WalMart for $.75 for a pack of four. 

I'd also set up fruit salad and potato salad, but they were lidded at this point and didn't have their labels on.  I believe they read, "Power Boosting Fruit Mix" and "Hero Worthy Potato Salad"... in case anyone was wondering.  :)

Chili stayed warm in the crock pot, and chips were served in a basket lined with brown craft paper.

First up, the kiddos worked on their art project, which was decorating their own Captain America shields.  I assembled the shields themselves before the party, and put out sticky letters, precut out circles, glue, construction paper, and coloring sheets for them to use to decorate their shields. 

This photo cracks me up because my husband's mother and grandmother appear to be
SO serious about these shields, lol!

Next up, I cleared away the art supplies, we ate, and then came CANDLES and presents!  Yay!!!

My heroes.....  <3

The Birthday Boy...

Brodie and my Super Hero Husband...   LOL!

and... our sweet little friends who were our neighbors when we lived in Austin, and now live only about 5 miles from us.  Crazy right?

Overall, everything turned out really great and our little boy had a GREAT day.  I'll be back in a few days with a post about specific little projects I did for the big day.

:)  Courtney



Homemade Thank you Notes.

I knew that I wanted to include a photo of the kids that attended Brodie's party in their thank you notes.  Each photo was a 5x7 (I used an online photo service), so many of the normal thank you cards you find in the store....

Baseball theme party Wrap Up.

Wow, what a weekend.  I think I need another just to recover from it.  :)
We celebrated Brodie's birthday on Saturday and it was a ton of fun.

As most of you know, we had his party at Minute Maid Park in downtown Houston.

Here's a little video in case you're interested in our fun.  :)  It's only about a minute long.



The cupcake cake was provided by the famous Three Brothers Bakery here in Houston.  Thanks to that yumminess...

Baseball birthday bunting

Baseball Birthday Bunting.

Birthday Baseball Bunting.

Try saying that three times fast.  :)

Making a personlized birthday shirt.

There's going to come a day when my sweet little boy isn't going to let me plaster his age on the back of a special shirt, just for him to wear on his birthday.  I'm guessing that day will arrive around the time his age starts ending in -teen. 

However, that day isn't today... so here we go!  :)

It all started when I was in WalMart last week, in the baby/toddler department, picking up some diapers and some new Pjs for little guy.  I spotted this shirt, and thought it would be great for Brodie to wear for his birthday party.   Check out that price tag- only $3.50.  So, it is a 5T, and it isn't going to fit for long, but for less than $4, I don't really care.  :)

Plus, the front design goes Oh-So-Well with our baseball theme.

I mean, seriously, how cute is that?

I decided to make it even better and add his name to the back.  I actually went to Hobby Lobby, and almost purchased individual iron on letters, but then I remembered I already had printable transfer paper at home.  Of course, you know I picked up something for the house while I was there, with my newly justified savings.  haha!

So I went home and created a document with his name and a large six.  If you've never printed on transfer paper before, you have to change your settings to print the mirror image.

I then cut out the 6 and the letters, and ironed them on.  I probably would have chosen red, to carry over the design from the front, but Brodie wanted blue- and birthday guy gets what he wants.  :)

So, for less than $4 we have a personalized shirt for Brodie to wear this his baseball party!  He loves it!

:)   Courtney

Venue - The planning of a birthday party

This young man will be turning 6 next month.


He's also starting T-Ball and is super excited about it.  He's even been wearing his new cleats around the house.  So, when discussing it, we decided that a baseball themed party might be the perfect fit.
This may or may not have been insisted upon by his father, who was once a little obsessed with the game in his younger years.

He's never had a large party before because we just haven't known that many kids to invite to a big party.  All of our parties before have been centered around family with maybe 2 friends. However, this year he is in school and REALLY wants to have a party so he can invite all of his classmates.

I did a little research online and found out that Minute Maid Park, home of the Houston Astros, leases their party suites for birthday parties and events.  Sweet..SUITE!  har har.   
Talking my husband into going this route was super simple.  Major League Ballpark ... they get to run the bases? He was sold.

Me...  You provide the cake?  You provide the entertainment?  You provide goodie bags for the kids?  What, AND a gift from the Astros to my child?  Wow, this is like a no brainer.  haha.   Here I was considering the local jumpy place- which is still super cool, but they're almost as much rental wise, and they provide NOTHING extra.  That stuff really adds up.

So, yep.  I was sold too.

We decided to go on one of the tours offered by the ballpark last Sat because I have control issues and needed to see what we were committing to for a day of family fun.
If you're in the Houston area, and you have a free afternoon, it is definitely something to look into.  In fact, everyone on our tour lived in the Houston area.  Awesome being a tourist in your own town.
I've since looked and Reliant, the local NFL stadium, and the Toyota Center, NBA, host tours also, in case you're interested.

Anyhoo, stay tuned for more birthday party planning posts over the next month.  Meanwhile, here are some photos from our tour of the ballpark.


Minute Maid Park is located in downtown Houston. 
Although there are several entrances, we entered into the park via the old Union Station.  In fact, the field itself was built over the old train yard. 
Our guide told us that after it was a Train station, it was converted into office buildings, and when the Astros took it over, the ceilings in the station had been dropped down to 8 feet.  In their remodeling, they discovered some of these amazing plaster designs and the arches, which they then restored.

You then enter into this concourse area where if you look back, you can see the old restored brick, and into Union Station.

This area also has beautiful exposed beaming.  Don't you just love the color of the brick in contrast to the steel? Love it.

Looking back the other way, you can see peeks of the field.

What we found great is that there was actually a birthday party going on while we were there.  They're small, but if you look closely, you can actually see these kids out on the field running the bases.

I believe (don't quote me) that this was one of the first baseball fields to have a retractable roof.  While we were there, it was closed.

To the left, you can see a stone wall under the huge wall of windows (which also retract).  On the wall is a train rail, on which, sits a train. :)

This was constructed in honor of the field's history, and the association with Union Station.   The train does actually run, and it makes it's way across the wall for three occasions - Prior to a game to wish the Astros luck (tacky comment alert.. I think they need more than just luck.. ha!), when an Astro hits a homerun, or after an Astro's win.

I realize this is a ballpark, and baseball themes are bound to be prominent, but I was surprised at how many baseballs I saw everywhere.  How fun it must have been to be the designer/decorator for this place.  Look- baseballs hidden in the carpet pattern!

 Baseballs as finials..

Baseballs as lights!  (this was in the owner's luxury suite.. oh lala)

We also made a stop at the press room.  Here is Brodie pretending to be famous.

 And Rylan.. he had lots to say in his press conference.  :)

 The boys (all three of the big ones) thought the warm up batting cages were pretty cool.

 I was surprised that they use a manual scoreboard.  Our guide said they actually have staff behind the board during games changing out the numbers.

 And this is what I did for most of the tour.. ha!

I'm working on the birthday invitations currently, and I'll have a post about those.  I'm also planning on making a baseball themed bunting to hang in the party suite.   Is it okay to get more excited about a birthday party than your child?

:)  Courtney