poshed up: It's a bird...it's a plane...no it's a SuPeRHeRo PaRtY!

My son's 5th birthday party was this past Sunday and it was so much fun. I am truly exhausted after all of the preparation, but he had the time of his life so it was all worth it. I wanted to share some of the ideas I used and give credit where it's due for the ideas I borrowed. This is a REALLY long post filled with pictures so hopefully it won't bore you.

I played off of the common superhero colors of red, blue and yellow throughout the theme and found the perfect invitations to match. Here is a copy of the invitation I used which I got from Paper Monkey on etsy....I just loved it!

We added a line encouraging the kids to wear their own superhero costumes...here is my little superhero before the party started.

Of course he had to go the bathroom as soon as he got in the costume...hence the pose...lol

Also, you'll see a lot of him in this post because I don't like to post pictures of other people's children on here, but I assure you there were 7 other little superheros here that day!

All of our decorations followed this theme with the added color of green. Here are some pictures of the decorations before the party began.

Homemade banner using some clip art from 'One Charming Party'. This was so simple...I should have taken pictures while I made it, but it's just card stock cut into circle shapes and then run through the sewing machine...yes, the sewing machine. Then I adhered the letters on top and voila! I did sew ribbon to the end to dress it up a bit!

I also made the balloon wreath that I was crazy about and mentioned as one of my "Pins of the Week" a few weeks back. And here it is....

If you'd like instructions...you can visit 'Two More Seconds' because her instructions make it super simple to follow.

A few other fun ideas I found, but unfortunately can't remember where are these cute cutouts with my son's initials for the tables and the painted boxes as a skyline backdrop...which you'll see later.

These served as our centerpieces and the bases were simply "Mike & Ike's" candies...my son's favorite that just so happen to match our theme. We also had 2 bunches of balloons in red, blue and yellow on the table.

Speaking of the table...here is what ours looked like...

Along the fireplace in the back I tried another idea I found for multi-colored streamers. FUN!!!!

You can find a tutorial on 'Made' (on of my all-time top favs of blogs). Hers are a little different, but I decided to go with no gathering because I was afraid they'd look too girly!

Here is a close up of them...

I had a table set up near the main table with our desserts, water bottles, a few snacks and a few other things. This table had our skyline backdrop which held the goody bags.

Here is the sign posted above...

On the left side of the table we had "POWER popcorn" in paper cones...

On the right I had chocolate covered pretzels and in the middle...our cupcakes with cupcake toppers to match our invites from 'Paper Monkey'.

On the table I had some cutouts of words in case you're wondering what they are in the picture.

And the goody bags....I made Spider Man, Batman and Captain America bags. My son's favorites.

These are made from Walmart paper bags and simple cut out decorations.

On the back we attached a little note of thanks.

Our main food table was on our kitchen island and we served superhero themed food. My son has tons of food allergies so I had to customize the menu to make sure he could eat as well so...we had:

"POWER Popcorn"

"KAPOW Carrot Sticks"

"ATOMIC Apple Slices"

"WHAM Watermelon Kabobs"

"Super-charged Chicken Nuggets"

"HOLY Macaroni"

"LIGHTNING Lemonade"

Cupcakes and Water

We made bow tie pasta because my son has always said that it looks like bat wings so what better fit?!

And yes, I did have red and white roses on the food tables. What would a party be without flowers. I also added our superhero lollipops next to it. I got the idea for these from 'Zakka Life'. Aren't these adorable?

She even shared her template on her blog so go check it out. These would be fun for Halloween too.

The whole premise of the party was based on my son's on-going insistence that he needs to be a "real" superhero so that he can defend our family against the "bad guys" when they come to our house. Quite the imagination. So.....I planned the whole party around the idea that the boys would "earn" their superhero badges, capes and masks after completing activities to demonstrate their superhero abilities.

Here was our table with all of the activities before we got started.

We had several things they did to earn their superhero badges, capes and masks.

For each activity they earned a star on their badges...

They were costume store bought medals with a foam circle hot glued to them. We then added the sticky stars after each activity.

They had a bunch of activities to complete and they started with "Ping Pong Power Training" where they had to keep the balloon in the air for as long as possible with their partner. I got the idea from 'The Weekend Homemaker'.

The paddles were just paper plates and plastic rulers taped to them.

Then we did "Straw Rocket Launching" where they had to shoot their "rockets" off the straw. I got this idea from 'Curious Kangaroos' and it was so simple to make. They are really just rolled up paper taped at the end and then a straw...super simple.

...they all tried so hard to make it go across the room....so sweet!

Next was practicing their accuracy with our "Bean Bag Toss". Totally homemade.

I painted an old box and cut a whole in it. I made the bean bags too...who knew they were so simple?!

The last activity inside was the "Laser Maze". This was so much fun for the boys. I found this idea on 'Chicken Babies'. My husband and I had fun putting this together for them. We used painter's tape and streamers.

They had to climb under the lasers without touching and take a piece of taped streamer off the door on the other end. They did so good!

My little commando...lol

Last up was our silly string. We took them outside for this one for good reason and they had no idea that Batman was going to make a surprise visit.

After we came back in the boys were still trying to figure out where Batman went. They all had a theory...oh the imagination of 4 and 5 year old boys!

Here they are looking out the window for him...

They all earned their medals, capes and masks. My husband thinks that was the highlight for the boys!

I made them all capes and masks as part of their goody bags. They each had their initial and coordinated with their masks. Each cape has a different color on the inside as well. (BTW...if you are familiar with my etsy shop...I will be selling these custom made capes very soon. A great Christmas gift!)