Superhero room remodel ideas

When Jake transitioned out of his crib 2 years ago, we gave him an animal themed room (which you can see here); and even though I specifically chose decorations that weren't too "babyish" so that the room could grow with him, the room has looked babyish to me in recent months.  The best laid plans, right?  I don't feel too bad about having to change the room so soon, because whenever Liam moves to a big boy bed, he'll inherit all of my hard work on the animal theme :) 

I'm going to go with a superhero theme because I think (hope!) that might stick with him for a little while before he outgrows it.  And my plan is to just find a solid color comforter that we can just continue to use once he's moved on to other ideas. 

Here are some of the ideas I've been thinking about; his walls are yellow, and he has a red Pottery Barn anywhere chair, so I feel like just doing a general superhero theme with lots of primary colors will be easy to blend into the room. 

I only have a few things so far, including these metal, vintage-looking signs that I picked up while in NYC a few weeks ago (gotta love bargains from street vendors!):

I also scored this Spiderman trash can from Target the other day, marked down to $4!!

 Other items I'm considering:

I did these free printables for Jake's bday party and had them on the front door; I'm thinking they might look cute if I printed them out as 8x10's and framed them in white frames?? (just one of each, obviously, not 12!)

This vinyl decal from VinylKrazy is a must ($10!), I love this phrase and it's so perfect for him (I'd probably order in red or blue):

Bedding options:

Mainstays Bed-in-a-Bag ($30, walmart):

Mainstays reversible comforter set-comes in blue and red ($24, walmart):

Another birthday post...last one, I promise!

I just wanted to share a few pictures of Jake on his actual birthday....mainly because he wanted to wear his Batman shirt that included a cape to school that day.  He also wanted to Liam to wear his-have I ever mentioned how much I love the fact that he is into wearing matching clothes with his brother??  Oh, I've mentioned it multiple times on here?  Oh well.  I am.  Because I know it's short-lived, so for now, I embrace it. 

Work it, Batman.

 

Jake's feedback on his birthday was that it was "so much fun" and he loved sharing cookies with his friends at school that day, and loved getting to stand on a chair while they sang happy birthday to him.

the gift he wanted most...Flo's Cafe from the movie, Cars

Superhero Party Details

Superhero Training Academy Party 

As I mentioned in my last post, I might have gone a bit overboard with the theme.  Actually, overboard might be a strong word...but I ended up doing more than I had originally planned to do, let's just put it that way.  But, I'm really happy with how it all turned out!

As usual, Pinterest was the main reason for creating more work for myself.  So many good ideas out there for this theme!!  Let's start with the decorations.

I had these on the front door, which were FREE printables from the Simply Designing blog:

Here is our living room, which is where most of the party took place:

Batman Tablecloth: Walmart
Batman birthday banner: Walmart
Big Happy Birthday sign with Batman: Party City
Pin the bag signal on Batman: Party City

*I lucked out a few weeks before the party, Party City was having an online sale with free shipping and all of the Batman stuff was marked way down. Score!

Cake and Table Settings

Buckets for utensils: Target Dollar bins, marked down to .30 each!!
Cake: Sam's Club

Favor Bags

Bags: Walmart
Fruit Snacks: Walmart
Batman markers, erasers, crayons: again, another Target dollar bin find!  Marked down to .30 per pack (there were 12 markers in each pack and 6 erasers)
They also got to take home the superhero mask they made at the beginning of the party (see next entry!) 

Superhero Mask Station

 
I found these awesome kits from Hobby Lobby, and the kids were each able to make their own masks!  The site has them for $5.99, I got them for $4.99 with a free shipping code.

Obstacle Course

The original idea came from this Design Mom blog, which had kids jumping over small boxes.  I saw other ideas on other blogs that expanded into a whole obstacle course, but most of those were outside, so I had to modify a bit.  We had them go through a tunnel (which we already had), punch a punching bag (we already had), jump over fake bricks (those kind that are toy blocks-already had), then knock down this building to save spiderman.  The boxes were generously supplied by my dad (thanks!) and Brian spray-painted them black, then I cut out the windows from cardstock paper.  Viola!

And, to wrap up the party this week, I found these superhero themed thank you cards at Target:

  

I did the invitation on evite (they had a superhero theme), and encouraged all of the kids to sport their superhero attire on the invitation (and almost everyone did, it was super cute!).  

Welcome to Superhero Training Academy!!

On Saturday, we celebrated Jake's 5th birthday with a Superhero Training Academy!  Jake was SO excited for the party, I don't know how he made it through the day, anxiously awaiting the arrival of all of the superheroes!

We had decided a few months ago that we would just do the party at home; and of course, like anything with me, something that started as a simple idea spiraled into a theme (Batman), and then an even more elaborate theme (training academy), and then I blacked out while on Pinterest and found myself with a can of spray paint, boxes, and glitter foam stickers. But I'll do a separate post with all of the party details and projects.

The superheroes started arriving, and the first activity was making superhero masks to wear during training!

After that, it was time for an obstacle course.  The premise was that a villain had tied Spiderman up on top of a skyscraper with his own web, so the superheroes had to go through a tunnel, hit a punching bag, jump over some rubble from the building (fake bricks), then knock the building down so that Spiderman could escape from the top.  The kids loved it!!

Jake gets Spiderman down on the first try!

Next up, time to put the bat signal on Batman! (aka-Pin the tail on the donkey)

After that, the superheroes had to refuel with some food:

Next up was presents, and I love how excited other kids get when watching others open gifts :)  It was like Jake became a celebrity, they were all crowding in, and ooohing and aahhhing over stuff.  He got a lot of great stuff!

I love Liam photobombing while collecting tissue paper to shred.

checking out a stickerbook with Jaden

Cake time!!

Here is a video of the big candle moment:

Overall, a fantastic party, if I do say so myself.  Everyone seemed to have a good time, no one was severely injured, and my house is still standing.  I was a little overwhelmed during some portions of the party (mainly the ones that involved children running while emitting ear-piercing shrieks), but I guess that's all part of the experience.  Here is a video, to demonstrate what I mean....this was in between some games, when the kids were entertaining themselves:

Every superhero needs a dog sidekick in a cape!!!  (right?)

Me & my mom, striking superhero poses

And no matter what kind of anxiety I felt, or how much work I put into it, it was all worth it, because the next morning, Jake came over to me and gave me a big hug and said, "Thank you so much for my party, mommy...I loved it".  A-ma-zing.  I'd do the party again 100 times for that kid.