Ashton's Birthday Party

We had Ashton's birthday yesterday at a bouncy house type place. It was the perfect place to entertain and feed 10 kids. I think he had a really good time playing with his buddies.

Pre-Party

Ashton said he wanted a Cars birthday party. Cars stuff has kind of overtaken a lot of our house. I decided to make him Tow Mater cupcakes. I found a cute idea of pinterest... pinned here.

I did modify the recipe a bit. First, they used jumbo muffins for the base and regulars for the back and top. Obviously that is too much cupcake per kid and I hated to not give each child their own Tow Mater so I did a regular cupcake with 2 minis attached. I still used regular sized M&M's. Instead of using the cookies for tires, I used pretzels (I already had them in the Chex Mix and nobody in my house eats them). I also did not crumble the cookies on Tow Mater. The modifications turned out perfect.

The cupcake decorations
What you need

1. One box cake mix
2. Two container of chocolate icing
   
3. One container of vanilla icing
   
4. M&M's
5. Pretzels
   
6. Gum (eclipse or something with that shape)
7. Edible black marker (thanks for letting me borrow this Amanda)
   

--- using an edible black marker, make circles on the green M&M's (these are the eyes)

To assemble the cupcakes...
1- Use chocolate icing to ice the regular cupcake and one mini cupcake.

2- Place the little one directly behind the larger one.

3- Ice, with vanilla, about 1/3 of the side of another mini, then use the chocolate to ice the rest. Picture below

4- Stack that one on top of larger.

5- Then add the wheels (pretzels or cookies), M&M eyes (green), M&M headlights (yellow or white), gum (2 pieces- one piece needs to be smaller then the other), and a brown M&M for the hood thingy.

Aren't they adorable?!?!

And just because it is funny, this one is Hunters- he doesnt like icing. ha ha ha! This is albino Tow Mator.

One box of cake mix made, 10 regular size cupcakes (I probably only filled each cup 1/2 way full), 24 minis, and an 8*8 cake.
The cake was for the adults. I cut it into 4 strips and then molded the number "4". Iced it in chocolate and added some white icing for the road... 4 red m&m's made it into a 4-way stop.

finished product

The party favors included some candy, a Cars cup with each child's name painted on it, and a pair of Cars socks (for the boys), and Princess/ Smurf socks (for the girls.)

In the words of my mother, I got a little preschoolish and made labels for the drinks that were Cars themed. Ok, so it is corny, but cute, right?

Filmore's Organic Fuel (AKA Dr Pepper) and Flo's V8 Oil (Chick fil A sweet tea)

THE PARTY
As I mentioned, the party was at a bounce house that also has a mini putt putt course inside. It was perfect.
Here are some pics from the play time.

Ashton playing putt putt by using the shooting pool method.

Aunt Sandee helping out Charlee.

Sam and Karson debating on "whose ball is this?"

The big boys going down together
Ashton, Sam, Hunter, Eli

Shep finally decided to conquer the bouncy houses- up until this trip, he was a little apprehensive of them

Sweet Conner wondering why this strange man is going to catch him.

Madi shooting hoops or playing catch.

Little Miss Ava (though sleepy was such a trooper)

Eli taking his turn

Sam sliding down

Hunter

Madi and Ashton

Shep could not get up this one by himself so Sandee, Benji, or I had to help him up

This girl has some ups... seriously, Karson would basically jump to the bottom of the slide.

Ok, so it was fun. Going down with Shep and Madi

Shepherd doing the backwards method

Even Queenie took a turn down the baby slide

The Food and Presents
First, I want to THANK my parents. They bought 1/2 of the hot dogs, the buns, the ingredients for the chili, ingredients for the slaw and then made everything and had it at the party at the perfect time!!! Thank you Thank you Thank you!!! It was delicious!

The gifts
He got 3 shirts, 2 pants, cookies, Cars Operation, Cars paint book, Toy Story coloring book, Hot Wheels cars, 3 gift cards, , rain boots, socks, pajamas, and money for the bunk bed fund

Such a cute shirt and describes the gift table perfectly

All the kids lined up ready to eat
From left to right- Hunter, Eli, Sam, Ashton, Karson, Conner, Shepherd, and Madi (Charlee and Ava were sitting on their mom's laps)

Ashton blowing out his candles

Thank you to those who came to the party- we are so blessed with wonderful friends and family. I did not realize until I got home that I didnt get pictures of the adults that came. But, I wanted you guys to know that we are so thankful that you took time to celebrate with us.

Ashton, hope you had a great birthday party! Just a few more days until you are officially the big 4!!! I love you sweetness!

*** Trying to get a video of the party uploaded to the video site, connection is really bad for some reason. Will post it when it uploads.