Mickey's Birthday Party

Mickey's 5th birthday was a pretty exciting event around here! I had a lot of fun making his Cars themed party as special as I could without sending myself over the edge! ;) I combined his first school friend party with his normal family party because...well...two parties is too much for me to deal with!

I made his invites using Photoshop and some clip art. I found Lightening McQueen on the Cars website, it's actually a computer desktop wallpaper that I cropped and then cloned out some excess stuff. I made the front and back as two separate 4x6 photos and then just adhered them back to back. It works really well and is fairly inexpensive too. With the help of Google I found a font similar to the official Cars font and chromed it up with Photoshop.

I also made personalized Pit Passes for the boys and Audrey and guest ones for anyone else who wanted to wear them. Surprisingly, quite a few adults did! I created the bar code with another font I found online and used the day of the party as the number. I made these 2x6 so I could get two on a 4x6 photo and just cut them apart. Worked like a charm and Mickey loved them!

In order to maintain my sanity, I did store bought cupcakes and cake this year. I figured as long as it's chocolate and Cars, Mickey won't care. No one else did, either. I'm not exactly an amazing baker so I'm pretty sure my box mix cupcakes were not missed at all. Heh!

I bought a few yards of the checked fabric (hemmed by Mom!) at JoAnn's, some cones at Fred Meyer (the kids are now using them to play soccer outside) and then set up Cars themed snacks in red and black plastic dishes I found on clearance at Target. We had stacks of tires (mini chocolate covered donuts), white wall tires (Oreos) and traffic cones (Nacho Cheese flavored Bugles). Oh, and Pirate's Booty. No Cars theme there, I just love the stuff! ;)

I used the leftover fabric to decorate the buffet along with as many pics of Mickey as I could get on there. Most of them got covered up fairly quickly. Little Man got quite the haul!

I originally was going to do some Cars games but, in the name of sanity (again!) I opted just to kick them outside with our new dog and the croquet set. They didn't care at all and loved playing with Lilly!

I bribed them with opening presents to get them back in the house. The kids swarmed Mickey with each new present he opened and I finally suggested that each kid get a turn "helping" Mickey open one present. That calmed things down fairly quickly.

His crown is the one he was given at preschool on his actual birthday and he thought it would be a good idea to wear it to his party.

After presents it was time for food!
Mickey blew out the candles on his cake pretty much the second his dad lit them. We explained that he needed to wait for us to sing and then make a wish and then blow out the candles. So, we relit, sang and then he blew out his candles. :)

It was a great little party. Mickey got to play with some of his preschool friends and see a bunch of family. He loved all his presents and was pretty good about sharing them with Audrey right away. We love our little guy and I'm so glad he loved his party, too. He's so worth every late night!

Oh, I almost forgot! The shirt he's wearing is a Cars one I found at Kmart for super cheap and snagged a few days before his birthday. I hung on his door knob the night before his birthday and he got to wear it to preschool that day and then again to his party. He thought that was pretty darn cool. :)

One more thing....here's a sneak at his Halloween costume in progress!