Watch out world... here come Mario & Luigi!

This morning was Ben's birthday party.  He originally wanted a sledding party.  I thought that was great because it would be easy, simple, and fun.  Ben helped me make the invitations and we planned to pass them out at church on Sunday.  Well, the snow melted.  I mean ALL of it.  The weatherman said we were supposed to get snow this Wednesday but you all know me (a little Type A, OCD, planner of all things), I did not feel comfortable relying on some weatherman telling me there was a "chance" of snow one day this week, and then planning a party based around that probability.  Who knows if it would have been enough to stick, or if it would all melt again, or whatever.  So, we bagged the idea and Ben chose to have a Super Mario party instead.  (And we DID get snow on Wednesday, and it DID stick, however, it was raining this morning and the snow is heavy and wet... not great sledding snow, so it's a good thing we went with choice #2.)

 When the kids got here they were transformed into Marios and Luigis.  (I searched high and low for cheap Mario and Luigi hats.  Authentic-looking ones were $9.99 on Amazon.  No way I would pay $120 for hats.  Then I looked at buying red and green baseball caps but even those were $4 or $5 a hat, still more than my budget.  Finally I found THIS pattern.  So easy.  I almost didn't want to post the link because then you would see exactly how easy it really was.  But, it's better to pass the love on so all you with Mario-addicts can do it, too.  These hats were only about $1.25/each to make.  The kids loved their fleece hats and each got to take it home, along with the fake mustache, and THIS Mario loot box filled with gold candy and coins.)

 The kids played "Pin-the-egg-on-Yoshi", trying to get their egg closest to the outlined egg (yes, coming out his bum... a running dinosaur who lays white and green eggs.  Who thinks this stuff up?!)

 Josh getting pretty dang close to winning.  He came in second, and cousin Kaden came in first.  After the game, the kids went upstairs and found a note saying Princess Peach had been captured by Bowser and Mario and Luigi had to go save her.  (Jake wrote the clues, which were quite funny, and the final clue led them to Peach, and to their loot boxes with gold chocolate and gold coins.)

 Ethan, our third batter, broke the pinata.  He had quite the swing!

Ben's birthday cake I threw together this morning before the party.  I almost attempted to draw the Mario out of frosting.  I drew the Yoshi by hand for the "Pin-the-egg" game, and figured it wouldn't be that hard.  Then more I thought about it, the more I realized it probably wouldn't be a good idea.  You can't erase very easily when it comes to cake decorating, so I bagged that and just printed off Mario from the internet on cardstock.  The kids kept saying they wanted to eat his head... probably not a very good idea, unless they have a thing for paper. ;)

 We sang Happy Birthday and Ben blew out his candles.  His cousins, Kaden and Kimball,  (to the left and right of Ben) spent the night and Ben was happy he could spend the whole day with them.

 Eating plenty of chocolate Mario cake and vanilla ice cream.

 Our 8 year old Mario-addict!  Hard to believe he's getting so big.  We love you, Ben!