A Very Batman Birthday

So, Landon's birthday weekend! It happened, it was super fun, and it was all over and cleaned up by 12:30, leaving us with 36 hours of weekend to enjoy.  I'm think I'm in love with morning parties.

We went for a Breakfast with Batman theme. It started because Landon wanted all of his friends to come to his house and he's really in to superheroes, but I had no idea what to do with 15-20 4-year-olds (we're still at the "invite the whole daycare class" phase).  Then a co-worker mentioned a Batman party she'd done for her daughter's fourth birthday (four is the year of the Batman, apparently), a party for which she hired Batman. As it turns out, you can rent yourself a Batman (a kid appropriate Batman) for half the cost of going to a bounce house!  Who knew?!  I threw in the "breakfast" idea because I like alliteration, kids like breakfast, and it's too freaking hot in Austin in July to do anything after 12.

Invitations went out (thank you tinyprints for letting me design an invitation at 1 a.m.) and the list-making began!

 

The real birthday was Friday.  It began with opening presents (Batman backpack and lunchbox from Papa and Gigi!) and ended with pizza and a cupcake. 

 

It was a great day, made awesome by a voice mail left from Batman wishing Landon a Happy Birthday and a good sleep before meeting him tomorrow!  Landon was so excited he replayed the answering machine message AT LEAST 50 times.  He stood on his little step stool, tummy resting on the kitchen counter, finger hovered over the "play" button, ready to press it as soon as the current recording ended. On replay #52, I decided it was time for our little batman to go to bed.

 

(The red construction paper rectangles are the lasers coming out of his eyes, because Batman has fricking laser beams attached to his head.)

Saturday morning - party time! We were up early to prepare for the 9:30 start time, but luckily we kept things pretty simple.  The banner is courtesy of my friend Meredith who was making one for her son's 4th birthday party and mailed one to me because I was busy and stressed and she is awesome.  It's still hanging in our kitchen window.

 

Lots and lots of muffins.  Baked lovingly (from a box) by me.

 

Adult beverages (champagne was still in the fridge).

 

Fruit, sausage biscuits, muffins, cake, and a birthday boy -- we're all ready for our friends!

 

I had the table on the back patio set up for mask decorating (white mardi gras masks, adhesive jewels, and feathers), but all my pictures of that area have other kids and I try not to post pictures of other people's kids on my blog without knowing their thoughts on the matter.  And since I have a semi-private, non-facebook linked blog, it's hard to get thoughts.

After 30 minutes of mask making, muffin eating, and general merriment, Batman walked through our front door.

 

Holy geeze you guys, it was like a superstar had appeared. Kids were Freaking Out.  Landon wanted to know why he had a suitcase.  Also, where is the Batmobile?

 

Batman announced it was time to play with the parachute!  Kids are distracted by bright colors.

 

Then, magic! Batman has many talents.

 

Batman posed for pictures with the kids and then it was time for cake. (aka: CAKE!!)

 

Then Batman had to go. The kids were again VERY curious about how he was getting home. I kept them from finding out Batman drove a civic by decreeing no child was allowed in the front yard without parent, and then possibly suggesting they run to the backyard to see if he was flying away.

They ran to the backyard but just missed him.

 

And then, just like that, it was 11:00 and the party was over!  The goodie bags were given out, the kids were still smiley, and no naps were interrupted. Oh, and my house looked like this:

 

We told Landon we had to spend 30 minutes cleaning and then we could open presents. JP and I dealt with the kitchen and the leftovers while Landon made great progress on the play room (which I finished once we tucked our little ones in bed at 12:30).

 

He received many great superhero-themed toy items (making me very glad that we never buy him toys and very aware that his friends' parents know way more about cool toys than we do). Claire carefully recorded everything so we could write thank you notes on Sunday.

 

All in all, it was a really fun, relatively stress-free celebration of our little four-year-old.

Now I just need to figure out what to do for JP's 30th birthday coming up this fall...