When They Love Plants vs Zombies

My son turned 9 this month. And for his birthday, he decided that a Plants vs Zombies party theme was what he wanted. Of course we were 2 weeks from moving day when we started talking about this party of his. I always give them the choice of theme. But why does it have to be PvZ?! This is not in my comfort zone... Still, I do my best to create the party they dream of. Even mid-move! 

Planning starts with invitations. A party needs guests and since we are moving long distance, I had to give him a chance to hang out and socialize with his buddies near here before the move. After that... well, it might be a while before he sees some of them again. If ever. 

After the invitations, I decided to design his birthday cake. We agreed to make it ourselves to save money. But I didn't want to do the same one I had done for my older son. I made him the sunflower one. Fun and easy. Made from a round cake and Twinkies for the petals. No, this time I got a little ambitious. I mean, how hard can it be? 
At first I thought I'd make some characters using marshmallows. That was a mess. I had green fingers to show for it. And a perfect specimen for the show Nailed It. I was aiming for this guy and came out with...

Can't help but laugh. And then try something else! I figured I might have better luck creating paper ones that I can put on the cake using toothpicks instead. When I told the kids, they decided to do it for me! Can't blame them. After all, they saw my first attempt...

I also decided to use Golden Oreo cookies for the sunflowers. And grapes shooting green M&M's for the Pea Shooters. My daughter had some rectangular shaped graham cookies that I turned into headstones.

As for snacks, I thought popcorn, green grapes and watermelon bites would be perfect additions. They fit with the characters from the game. Plus, they are healthier options. Overall, I think it went well. He was thrilled with it all. Some of his friends came and celebrated with him. Quite the happy party!

In the middle, I used mini marshmallows, covered in green frosting to make the "bushes" that are in the game.

Putting it All Together!

My Party Pack arrived from House Party! Super happy to finally have all the fun gear together for the Sweetest Game Day party.

Tying that in with my sons parties. Time to get it all together and ready. They sent me a Snickers football, a mini Foosball table game and some bottle cozies!

I decorated the cozies and picked up some cream soda...I also got some Skittles and made little Rainbow Seed packs to send home with the kids.

It turned into so much fun! 

I also had fun piecing together my table decoration - the Pea Shooter. What do you think of it? 

I had to add beans inside the bottom of the cup as it would fall over otherwise. 

And then I made little candy goodie bags for him to take to class and give away, using mini Snickers, Milky Way and Musketeers bars. I think he will have a great birthday this year. There is more than one way to celebrate with such great snacks as Snickers, Skittles and M&M's! 
I also used some on his cake. Had trouble getting it out the pans. Lesson learned - white chocolate chips in a strawberry cake taste great, but stick to non-stick, greased pans like white on rice... So I went from this: 

To this:

Then this:

And finished with this!

Woo! I feel quite accomplished.

Prepping for the Party!

First part of getting ready for a party, always has to be the invitations and guest list. We will be having a party for his friends to come to at our house and then head up to his Nona's for a family party. The first thing I did was write up a list of the people I thought he might want to invite and then ask for his input on them and any others he might want to ask over. I'm keeping it small since it will be on a Wednesday night (school night!). Then I went looking for some cool, free printables to turn into invitations that will follow his choice theme. I came across these on Family Shopping Bag. The picture was too small and I wanted to print multiple at once, so I copied the picture and put it into a Word document and made some tweaks. After my adjustments were made, they were card-sized and ready for envelopes.

I had to make envelopes. Since I didn't have small ones that fit these, I took regular big letter envelopes and cut them in half.

Then these cards fit into them and I taped up the sides and back. Looks cheap, but it works. Thankfully, I did not have many to send. Next task is to try and make at least one game and possibly some decorations. Can't believe that we are past the halfway mark in January already!