a calvin and hobbes birthday party

My little guy turned 6 recently.  Six!  I can't believe it.  We decided on a Calvin and Hobbes theme for his birthday party, since he has been super into the comic this year.  I had fun making decorations and coming up with games.  Here is what we did:

Invitations!   (picture coming soon; need to get it off my phone)


Pizza!  The party was in the evening, and fell within the dinner hour.  So we served pizza, watermelon, and carrots with dip.  Simple.  Easy.  I ordered WAY too much pizza.  Oh well.

Games!  First we had three "stations" that were supposed to be happening simultaneously, with kids taking turns at each station.  It didn't exactly work out this way, and most of the kids were just playing while we did the Crazy Faces station (took longer than I anticipated).  But it was okay.  They were having fun playing around in the yard.


Three stations:


     -----Hop with Hobbes.  I set up two trampolines and put a plush tiger on each.  The idea was for two kids to hop and toss the tiger around, and even toss them back and forth to each other.  This station was pretty much a flop, for some reason.  Maybe I should have had an adult on duty to encourage the kids in what to do.... but left to their own devices they weren't too interested.  That's okay.

     -----Newspaper Hats.  Pretty self-explanatory.  Kids made newspaper hats, which Calvin and Hobbes wear in their boys-only treehouse club.  We didn't play up that aspect, as there were several girl cousins in attendance.  :)  Both Grandmas were very helpful at this station.

     -----Crazy Faces with Calvin.  I enlarged the faces in this picture

 on the xerox at the library, then cut them out, ala flash cards.  One at a time, the guests sat down and tried to imitate Calvin's faces.  After the party I made them into collages.  I love how these turned out.  I will print them out and send them to our guests with their thank-you notes.

-Calvin and Hobbes' Time Machine Dinosaur Dash
This race was completely inspired by this picture:

 The kids picked partners, put on Calvin and Hobbes costumes (shirt for Calvin, ears for Hobbes, and goggles for both), then ran in a time machine (box) through a maze of dinosaurs.  The dinosaurs were just ones I had around the house, taped onto garden stakes.  Some were wall decorations, others were decorations I had made and saved from S's 4th birthday party, 5 years ago!  I felt pretty proud of myself for using them again.  The kids were supposed to weave between the dinosaurs.  I spray painted a path for each team to follow, to make it easier for the kids to see.  Some of them still totally missed it and just ran straight for the finish line.  It was pretty hilarious.  Some of them ran so fast that they wiped out in their boxes.  This game was 1. totally adorable, 2. pretty chaotic, 3. fun to watch.  Hopefully the kids liked it as much as I liked the idea of it.

-Grand finale: Water Balloon Fight!!!
If you're a fan of the comic, you know Calvin loves his water balloons.  We didn't drop them from trees onto Suzy, instead we had a good ol' fashioned water balloon fight.  We filled a lot of water balloons.  I personally filled about 450.  My father in law contributed 200.  So 650 water balloons!  We distributed them around the yard in various plastic containers.  When I said GO, the kids went at it and got completely soaked.  I know my boys loved it.  All those balloons were popped within about 8 minutes!  After they were gone I had several pleading faces looking up at me......  "do you have any more???"  It was great.

Cake.  T chose an ice cream cake from DQ, which was generously provided by one of his grandmas.  Nice and easy.  Fine by me.  I made cake toppers out of paper and toothpicks.  We actually had two cakes because we had a lot of guests.

Gifts.  He got lots of fun things.  Time to write some thank-you notes.

Goodie bags.  I found some tiger tails and stretchy tiger balls that I thought slightly resembled Hobbes in the dollar section of Target.  The balls actually ended up ruining my first batch of goodie bags, leaving big grease marks on them.  Yuck.  I had to re-do the bags and put the tiger balls into plastic bags.  To go along with the tails, I wanted some ears.  I couldn't find any at a decent price online so I enlisted my mom to make some.  She made 14 tiger ear headbands for me and they were awesome.  Thank you, mom!  A few other little treats in the bags: animal crackers, m&m's, a punch balloon, a slinky, and dinosaur tattoo.

Miscellaneous decorations.  The power of the internet and a home printer made these decorations possible. 

T and I wanted to try to recreate Calvin's jump in this picture, since he has the matching sunglasses.  This was our best take.  :)

A note on T's outfit.  We had the shoes from 1950's day at school; they were perfect.  I bought a red shirt and painted on the stripes using painter's tape as my guide.  (I used electrical tape to make the stripes on the shirts for the game).  Shorts are just a simple knit pair from Walmart, cheapest I could find.  I tried to gel up his hair to make it look like Calvin's but it looked a lot more Calvin-esque the next morning due to bedhead. 


Okay, I think that's all I wanted to say about this party.  I had fun planning it and I love my little Calvin to the moon and back.

a few stenciled shirts

I've been stenciling shirts in the evenings when Nate is gone, instead of watching tv.  It makes me feel productive and occupied instead of lazy and lonely.  I made three for T, birthday gifts (which I had to give him early because he caught me looking at the photos), one for S, and one for myself.

Calvin and Hobbes shirt, for T.

Sokka shirt, for S. 

Aang shirt, for T.

Calvin and Hobbes inverse stencil shirt, for me.

Appa shirt, for T.

Sokka, Aang, and Appa are all characters from Avatar: The Last Airbender.  Are you guys watching that show yet?  You should watch it; it's so good!  Appa is my favorite of these stencils.  I also love how T's Calvin and Hobbes shirt turned out. 

Here's a picture of T dressed up like a "war guy."  Because we'll undoubtedly be moving to a smaller space, I've been trying to decide what we can bring with us and what we can't.  There are a couple boxes of costumes and dress-up accessories in the closet that probably won't be coming with us.  The boys almost never play with them, but then once in a while the cousins will come over, and everybody will come downstairs in the most hilarious costumes.  So I hate to leave them behind when I think of those funny play sessions.  But this picture gives me hope that the creative play will continue, with or without actual costumes.  This "costume" consists of undies over shorts, pj shorts on his arms, socks on his hands, and a crushed soda bottle as his weapon.

This weekend we are driving to Michigan for a little family reunion.  Last time this event happened, Nate and I were attending a wedding, so my family took the boys without us.  I'm looking forward to seeing all the relatives I missed seeing 2 years ago, and also to trying out the famous zip line that the boys raved about after their first trip to this camp.  Camera battery is charging as we speak, I'll try to come back with some pictures and stories!
xoxo