JD's Superhero 4th Birthday Party

JD is OBSESSED with superheroes, and he talked about having a superhero party for months leading up to his 4th birthday.  I cringed as we attended superhero party after superhero party for his friends, but almost-four-year-olds don't care that they're having the exact same theme as all their friends.

I got him involved with as much of the party planning/shopping as I could, which meant we ended up with the licensed SpiderMan plates, Batman napkins, Spiderman tablecloths, etc., This made it a little more challenging to separate his party from all the others.  But in the end, it is his day.

I still got to do fun things from Pinterest, like these adorable (no sewing involved) capes.  

Thanks for the free template jollymom! 

Kids and grownups alike had fun running around in them.

Suzanne left her kids in awe when she transformed.

The capes were complimented by the mask making craft.

(blank masks and sticky decorative things all from Oriental Trading)

For decorations, I used all of the superhero stuff we had around the house in addition to pennants I made from comic book fabric and life-size cutouts of Batman and Spiderman.  

JD reminded me that Buzz is a superhero, too!

The name sign was a personalized super hero comic book collage from RKRcreations.  I paid $20 for the digital file and $12 to have it printed poster size at OfficeMax.  Now it's hanging in his bedroom.  Score!

Super Kids!  (We had a lot of fun posing with these guys, and they were way more affordable that having costumed actors make an appearance. Cutouts were also from Oriental Trading.)

I love that my parents hop on board with the theme also :)

And although I kept the food simple, I had a little dorky fun with it.

I used this idea from Pinterest to create his invitations.

The boys had a blast posing for these pics, and I was really happy with the way it came out.

You can download the file here if you would like to personalize this invite for your party!

Finally, to keep the kids busy, we had a Kryptonite Hunt (saw the idea here) and a piñata.  For the hunt, I painted a bunch of large rocks we collected at the beach green and gave the kids oven mitts from the dollar store to protect them while transporting the rocks to the safe box.

The kids hid and found the kryptonite together over and over throughout the party.  I loved overhearing them reminding each other not to handle it barehanded or "you'll lose your superpowers".

 

And after explaining to him that you don't beat piñatas with a stick anymore (When did that happen?), we convinced my dad to hold it up while the kids took turns pulling ribbons.

Why does my kid look 12 here?

O was happy with his loot!

JD was one happy super kid that day!

*Special thanks to the awesome Suzanne for helping me that weekend and taking some of these photos.