THE CANNON FAMILY: Superhero Party!!

Jack is totally into superheroes, so we threw him a big ol' birthday bash to
celebrate this new obsession. Don't mind that I spelled "superheros" wrong on his digital invitation. I'm a stooooopid superhero.

We had the party in our backyard which never fails even if it's close to 85 degrees at 10 a.m.

Chase and I were laughing that because I didn't have a matching cake plate for the superhero cake, I just duct taped my glass one with blue tape. The cake has a story too. It's actually Sadie's birthday cake from her party the week before. None of the girls wanted to eat it after all the frosting and sprinkles they had inhaled. So I froze it, covered it with bright yellow frosting from the HEB bakery, and called it good. I didn't realize that once I brought it outside it would sweat after being in the refrigerator all morning. Oh well. Sweaty cake tastes just as good.

I attempted to indoctrinate the children into thinking that superheroes only eat fruits and vegetables so that's what we served at the party. The grapes were kind of a hit but the vegetables weren't eaten at all!! One small patron tried some broccoli and from the looks of things (below) he wasn't too pleased with his decision.

Julie found these fantastic labels for me on the Internet so I wrapped up water bottles in yellow duct tape and just glued these little signs on afterwards. Poor Chase was stuck cutting them all out which if you look at "BANG", takes some serious skills.

Us Cannons all dressed up in our superhero paraphernalia even though it was a struggle to get Sadie to wear a Spiderman t-shirt. She decided to be awesome and only complained about it about all morning.

As the little superheroes arrived we took their pictures in the little photo prop I made. I don't think the kids really understood what we were doing until the picture was emailed and showed to them that night after the party. Jack wouldn't cooperate while Julie was taking the pictures so I took his and Sadie's after the party was over as well. We did get a pretty funny one of George though. He looks more like a giant baby ready to attack rather than save the city below him. I'm actually amazed the shot isn't blurry because he was in that position for literally a fourth of a second before he stomped off to reek havoc somewhere else.

While we were waiting for everyone to get their pictures taken, the others jumped on the trampoline or did "superhero training" on the obstacle course Chase set up. I thought about renting a bounce house and was shocked to learn they are close to $250 for a half day rental. Chase and I joked that we could buy a brand new trampoline for that price and actually keep it afterwards, so that's exactly what we did! Except we found one on Craig's List for only $50. Who's the superhero now?!!

Next up, mask decorating.

I loved seeing what each kid came up with and, what was even more amazing, was that most of them kept their mask on for the rest of the party.

Then....we had to save Spiderman! Mr. Freeze trapped him in an ice block and the only way to save him was to take turns "super soaking" him with warm water. Mr. Freeze did a pretty good job trapping Spiderman because even after the moms took a turn, we ended up just dumping the ice block in the water and released him that way. Superheroes are not only brave, they're pretty smart too!

Then, it was piñata time!

The night before I had this piñata on the dining room table and when I walked to the kitchen in the middle of the night to get some water the "disoriented me" thought Spiderman was a real man sitting at our table!! All I could see was his black silhouette in the darkness and he about gave me a heart attack!

We got our revenge on him the next day. I still say these piñata companies are all wrong. We shouldn't be whacking Spiderman. We should be hitting the Joker, Two Face, or some other villain. Doesn't seem right to be so hard on one of the good guys. This was the first piñata I've ever purchased that I didn't have to eventually open up after all the kids had a turn hitting it. They're usually so indestructible!! Not this time. Spiderman got pretty injured after the third kid so Chase had to retie him so the other kids could have a turn. It's always so funny watching kids throw elbows to get that last tootsie roll. They act like they've never had candy before!

Then we sang to our amazing little Jack and ate some delicious sweaty cake. While we were eating we had a surprise visitor from Batman himself! Actually, he ended up calling himself "Batzorro" because he couldn't find his Batman mask anywhere. The Zorro mask was the next best thing. All the kids recognized him as "Evan from church." I paid him to dress up and show up at the party. He was awesome with the kids and because they knew who he was, they weren't scared of him and chased him all over the place!

We also hired a lady to come paint the kid's faces. She did an awesome job even though she showed up ten minutes before the party ended. Only a few kids didn't get their faces painted, which I'm sure their parents were grateful for, but those that did, looked fantastic!!

The parents decided they weren't too old for a little face painting too.

While lots of the kids were being painted, we took those waiting for a "superhero" scooter ride. It was a whopping 10 mph ride up and down our street but you should have seen these kid's faces. They were in heaven!!

Some just kept jumping back on and had multiple rides. I knew this scooter would come in handy one day, if not for just being my favorite toy ever!

The party went about an hour over so Jack didn't have time to open presents in front of his friends. I think he was ok with that. Having Sadie, Mom and Dad (George slept through the whole party) as spectators was good enough for this little guy.