Asher's Lego Batman Birthday Party

On Sunday of our 4th of July weekend at the cottage, we celebrated Asher's 5th birthday with all of Eric's family.  Asher wanted a Batman birthday this year and with his love for legos and the Batman Lego movie recently coming out on video, I figured that would be a perfect theme and also perfectly easy.  With everything that we have had going on this summer I needed any party that we had to be super easy, but still I want the kids' birthdays to be memorable.  I vowed to keep everything simple, and for the most part I think I succeeded...

Decorations:
This year I did the UNTHINKABLE...I went to Walmart and purchased pre-made Lego Batman decorations!  Then, I used those in conjunction with some leftover decorations from last year's superhero party, and made a few yellow bat symbols of my own to go with to decorate the deck at the cottage.

Dinner:
The party started out with dinner and again, I kept things very easy.  We had Villian Veggies (an easy-peasy store-bought tray), Joker Juice, Harley Quinn Hammers (pretzel sticks stuck in cheese cubes), Cat Woman Claws (Bugles), Penguin Snacks (Goldfish crackers), Riddler Taffy (Laffy Taffy), Batman shaped watermelon (simply made with a Batman shaped cookie cutter I purchased), pineapple with a blueberry bat symbol (or at least what was meant to be) and Poison Ivy Pizza.  Everything was tasty, yet very simple to throw together after a long day of play.

The kids' table.

Olive enjoying her batman watermelon

Fun:
Since we were at the cottage, planned activities really were not necessary as there was already plenty of fun to be had.  For the most part the kids just played.  They played in the lake, the played with the balloons I bought to decorate and they colored a little with the batman coloring sheets and batman puzzles I printed from the Lego Batman website.  I had also printed out a Lego Batman bingo game from online but we never actually had time to play it, and it probably would have been a bit boring to 4 kids ages 5 and under anyway.

Video: Emmett Smashes the Water Balloon

Presents:
Like most birthday parties, we also had a few minutes to open presents...

Dessert:
When the kids were done playing and Asher had opened all his presents I brought out the cake and ice cream ("Bat Chip") for dessert.  Again, it was completely uncomplicated.  My friend Jen from work gave me the idea of tracing a frosting design on wax paper, freezing it and then flipping it upside down on top of the cake.  I had never done this before but it sounded easy enough to do with a simple Batman symbol so I gave it a go.  It worked PERFECTLY!  I made a simple yellow cake mix, frosted it with Dark Chocolate Fudge frosting (which was the blackest chocolate frosting I could find) and then made a yellow bat symbol to put on top.  It was extremely easy to make and I was very pleased with the results.  I will definitely use that trick again some time!

My cake and frozen bat symbol design.

Family photo with the birthday boy.

The finished cake.

Video: Happy Birthday to Asher

Movie Night:
Finally, we ended the party (& the evening) with a movie night to watch the Batman Lego movie.  The kids got to stay up extra late to watch the movie together.  Originally they were supposed to stay up and watch the movie and then we would watch the fireworks that evening over the lake, but it started to rain outside as we sat down to watch the movies so the fireworks got canceled (or I should say postponed only to be blown off MUCH later at 1am while everyone was trying to sleep and no one was actually able to enjoy them).

The kids checking out their goodie bags full of stickers, tattoos, glow bands and fruit snacks to go along with the Batman cups and and no-sew caps I had placed at their seats at dinner.

So, that was it.  Another party finished.  Another year in the past.  Several more memories to treasure with a lifetime left to make!