Cowabunga Dude! Ev's 4th Birthday Party

Everett's summer birthday has historically made birthday-partying a little tricky because sooo many people in our transient town head "home" for the summer. This year school gets out just a few days before Ev's birthday and as luck would have it a whole slew of his buddies are skipping town right after the last bell rings so we decided an early birthday bash was in order! This was Ever's first friend party, and boy did we do it right. He went back and forth on what kind of party he wanted to have (Big Hero 6? Newsies? Fighting Party? Of course he wanted a fighting party!) but ultimately settled on his true love--Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This was rather convenient for me because one of my college roommates had recently planned a TMNT party for her son, so many of the ideas for Ev's party were borrowed (uh-hem, shamelessly copied) from Marcelle (thanks Celle!) Now if only I could steal (I mean borrow) Marcelle's photography skills life would be real good.

Are you kidding me? How cute are these preschool ninja turtles?! We stuck to inviting his preschool class with just a couple other little boys added to the mix for good measure. We held the party in Central Park, right across from the Imagine Memorial where the people are few, the space is large and the smell of pot is always wafting in the air. We did not, in fact, pick the location because of the Mary Jane, but I just wanted to set the scene accurately for ya! "Mom, I fink dewe is a skunk awound hewe." "Yep Ev, I fink you're right." Eh hem.

Enough about drugs, let's talk decor. At the last minute James decided to grab the card table and I'm so glad he did. Everything looked way cuter on a table than it would have on the picnic blankets. I always keep it simple when it comes to party decorations, and this was no different. Our trusty birthday sign, some character plates, a few balloons and the cutest Leonardo lovey that Aunt Ash sent him for his birthday. Green juice boxes and green grapes and ninja turtle cupcakes just added to the fun.  

This guy has not left Ev's side since he opened him. He was reeaaalllly upset that we were using him for decorations because "dat is not a decowation, dat is my wuvey!" but I talked him into letting Leo protect the cupcakes. It worked! He also said, "Aunt Ash knew I wiked da bwue guy cuz he's in chawge." He's never seen a ninja turtle show, but that kid knows what's up!

Our little corner of beautiful Central Park before the kids got there and I started running around talking in funny voices trying to get everyone pumped! Birthday parties are so fun, and so crazy!

Ninja turtle plates. I don't know if you know this, but that's a suuupppper big deal for an almost four-year-old like Ev. He walked around holding his party plates for days after the kind Amazon man delivered them to our door. "Dose ninja tutos aw fighting on my pwate, dat is so awesome!" and then he would giggle and giggle. He also picked out his cupcake toppers at Party City. I was all ready to throw down a Ninja Turtle Cake like no one has seen before, but he saw those and it was love at first sight and so, there you have it, the easiest birthday cupcakes that ever existed and a little boy who got everything he wanted on his big day. Winning.

Ninja Turtle balloons won us major brownie points with the kids because they all got to bring one home. The humidity made the streamers a little melty but nothing a little tape couldn't fix. (Let's just pretend that the yellow guy is wearing an orange mask because I'm a little brain dead and forgot to get orange streamers. And purple for that matter. But wemembew dat da bwue one is in chawge anyways?!)

We played a water relay and a TMNT dress-up relay with costumes and I'll tell you the truth, total combined time with both relays was probably 5 minutes. There was a whole lotta cheerleading from the sidelines but the kids were not too sure about any of it. Oh well, moving on...!

Decorating cardboard pizzas was a crowd pleaser. James made all 12 of these and cut out cheese, pepperoni and olives so that the kids could glue them on. Ever is our little artist so he loved this activity so much. It's always fun to let the kids go on an art project and see what they come up with. Some kids made pizza like they would want to eat, others wanted patterns or designs, some wanted to just hold their pizza but put nothing on it!

Another one of them decorating their pizzas. I had to include this one because our baby monster was trying to attack all the kids and eat their work. Luckily all these kiddos think Quinn is the greatest and not the annoyingest! After they decorated pretend pizzas we ate a real pizza dinner while the glue dried. I ordered 6 pizzas and just for reference sake, that was way too many. I fed the kids and the adults and still came home with two full pizzas!

Everyone's FAVORITE part of the party by far was when I let them open their favors (shirts, masks and TMNT fruit snacks) and dress up like REAL Ninja Turtles so that they could fight the evil Shredder. James was the man of the hour and wore a hoody and mask and let those kids chase him around the park for at least 20 minutes. They giggled and screamed and through their pizzas at him in earnest and even now sitting on my couch the memory makes me smile till I'm giddy.

Finally they caught Shredder and didn't waste any time in torturing him with tickles and tummy-jumps. The look on his face seems to say, "What did you get me into?" and at the same time I think it says, "This was the most fun I've had in forever!"

This was post-battle when all of our Ninja Turtles were caked and presented and ready to head home for an early bedtime. Everett has such a great group of friends and I'm so glad they were able to come celebrate his birthday with us. He is a special kid that Everett, deserving of a big bash indeed!

Two grainy phone pictures from the way home when my little Ninja Turtles were leading the way and every head was turning to look at their cuteness. I'm lucky to have them, they're lucky to have each other, we're all just really lucky. Happy birthday Ever Knight. You know how much I love you--a million!