Spiderman Party

We were going to have a birthday party for Caleb last summer, but life with a newborn got in the way.  Needless to say, we have been planning this for over a year.  (Not concrete planning, Jaime, but we knew we would have it).

We did not initially think of the Spiderman theme, but once we decided on it, it was easy and fun to plan.

When I saw his paper mache that he made (the same day as I made the watering can for Nellie's party) I thought it looked like Spiderman's head and we decided to make it a Spiderman pinata for the party. (Caleb's is the one right in front of Toby). We painted it red.  We cut out eye shapes out of aluminum foil and carefully cut electrical tape to secure them on.  Lastly, we used a permanent marker to make the  web design.

We have a Wilton Spiderman cake pan, which we have used for the last 4 of his birthdays. Last years was probably my worst one, but this one might have been my best.

We scoured the internet for find Spiderman games.  Most games we found were party games with a Spiderman twist.  We made a list of different games, but Caleb could not decide on his favorites.
Musical webs, beanbag toss (each target different character assigned points), pin the spider on the web, hot Spiderman(hot potato with a Spiderman doll).  We thought it was okay to over plan, but I did warn him that we would not get to them all.

I really wanted something more authentic, like climbing walls, but it seemed unattainable.  I always loved the getting dressed relay (where one teammate puts oversized clothes over in their clothes, runs to the next player and passes the clothes onto them and so on) and thought it fit in with the theme since Peter Parker wears his costume under his clothes and needs to get dressed or undressed quickly.  Andy was not a fan and his influence put it on the bottom of Caleb's list.  After Caleb's birthday, the kids were playing with Caleb's skateboard and when they laid on their stomach, I said they looked like Spiderman climbing the wall.  I said this would be the perfect transition between teammates in the getting dressed relay and Caleb was on board.

Caleb counted down the days to his party.  He could not wait!

While we waited for everyone to come, the boys just played around.  After a while, we decided to start with our photo booth since we didn't have everyone there.  I thought they would get more into the pictures, but I think they will still shy since it was the beginning of the party. We passed around a few Spiderman books so people could get some ideas of cool moves.  I created a backdrop from a Spiderman sheet we had.  I wish I had made it on the ground because almost every kid did something close to the ground. We printed a picture of each kid and included it in their thank you note.

 

Caleb decided to play "hot Spiderman" next, to the theme song.

Next we did the dressing relay, which I think was one of the hits of the party.  We were laughing so hard and the kids had a great time.  Toby doing the skateboard in the costume really looked like Spiderman climbing the walls.  It was awesome.

Then we did the pinata.  We used Caleb's Spiderman sleeping mask so they could not see where they were hitting.  We had been worried that the paper mache was not going to be thick enough to last very long.  I had originally thought it was fine if it busted on the first hit, because the fun is getting the prizes.  When all the kids were lined up, I started to worry that they would be sad if they didn't get to bat.  One downward swing did pull it off the rope, but we retied it on and every kid got to hit and Caleb, on his second turn, busted it open.  It was perfect.

 

 

Next we did cake and presents.

Then we had our surprise silly string fight.  They had a blast.  The best part was when all their cans were empty, Margaret who had been chased when she didn't have a can, took a can and got them all back.

Caleb decided that he just wanted to run around and not play any more party games and so that is how we ended the day.  It is amazing how fast and exhausting 2 hours can be.

When I asked Caleb if the party was as fun as he thought it would be, he said that it was even better.  It made my day.  I think/hope the other kids had as much fun. On the first day of school, on of the dad's said his son was still talking about the Spiderman party.