Toy Story Party

Last month my baby boy turned 3! We flew up to Auckland for my son's birthday party. Most of our families live in Auckland so it made sense to have a party up there, rather than have all of them travel down to us. 

My boy has been into Toy Story for quite a while now, and so we had a Toy Story themed birthday. I tried to keep things as simple as possible, so that I could easily transport the things I needed to from home, as well as making the party a bit more interesting. Seeing as he is only 3, I don't feel like we need to go all out yet in terms of making completely themed food and heaps of decorations. Maybe once he is older we will be a bit more full on with completed themed food and everything!  

However I did try and get as much Toy Story themed party stuff as I could. I got a party pack on sale at Spotlight with cups, plates, napkins, party blow outs and loot bags, as well as an inflatable Buzz Lightyear jetpack for the birthday boy's costume. I also found Toy Story stickers at Spotlight along with a cupcake stand on sale with 75% off! 

Plates, Cups and Napkins from the party pack

My sister collected some loot bag items from Look Sharp- Toy Story kaleidoscopes, spinning tops and sheriff badges. We only had three children attending the party, so I wanted them to have really awesome loot bags. A luxury affordable with so few kids! We also did another visit to Look Sharp while I was up there and I picked up some mini Toy Story notebooks and Toy Story themed wrapping paper. (I highly recommend Look Sharp for party stuff if you are in Auckland!)

Loot bag contents...lucky kids!

Those boingy tube things are super awesome. They're kind hard to describe, but it's a flexible tube that you can stretch and squeeze, and fire around the room by squishing down and letting it fly out. Our local post shop sells them at only 60c a piece! (Not sure if "boingy tube" is the correct name for them!) The loot bags also had a mini cookie time cookie and a mini packet of mentos sweets. I think the kids did pretty well out of this party!

I bought this kids birthday cake book a few months ago:

Buy this book here

Toy Story themed party food- Main Picture: Alien Cupcakes; From Top:  Buzz Lightyear cake; Woody Cake (with real life Woody Doll); Sheriff Star Cookies; and Rocket Cookies

The main reason I bought the book was I was searching for ideas for the birthday cake. We already decided to do a Buzz Lightyear cake, just not sure how to do it. This book has a few Toy Story designs, including a Buzz Lightyear cake, Woody Cake and Alien Cupcakes. It also has heaps of other Disney favourites, The Lion King, Mickey Mouse, Frozen, Jake and the Neverland Pirates and lots of others. If you have a Disney fan in your house it's a good investment. (I have a weakness for cake books, I have three kids party cake books now!) 

For the rest of the food, I just did basic party food, and had themed cupcakes and birthday cake. my father in law offered to do the birthday cake. To make the cake we used a Buzz Lightyear shaped tin which we hired. Originally my sister and I baked a beautiful fudgey chocolate cake, but when it came to getting it out of the tin it was a major fail! On the morning of the party, my father in law baked ANOTHER cake (using the tried and true Edmonds recipe) and iced the whole thing too. It was a pretty major task and he did an absolutely outstanding job! He used to do all of his own children's cakes when they were kids and is a very talented and creative person, just a little out of practice. So nice for a 2nd generation to be able to enjoy this talent! 

Just HOW amazing is this cake??!!

I had seen the idea for Alien Cupcakes over on the party page at Great Fun 4 Kids blog (here), I loved them but once I saw the cakes in the Disney book, they really captured me! They are actually made in Friand tins, to give them an oval shape. My clever cake-baking sister made them from a plain cupcake recipe, and coloured the batter with green food colouring for fun! We then decorated them with green buttercream icing/frosting, pre-made candy eyes (from Look Sharp), and cut jelly sweets for the ears, and rainbow straps for the mouth and around the neck. I'm really happy how they turned out as we did improvise a bit! Everyone got a surprise when they bit into the cupcakes as they didn't expect a green cake!

The Claaaaaaaaw!!!

I thought the kids were old enough to do a few party games this year, so we did a treasure hunt, pin-the-star on Woody and pass the parcel. The treasure hunt they did outside and had to search for mini Crunchie bars and a Sheriff Star each. They didn't quite get the hang of it, but I wonder was that more to do with the fact that my husband hid the "treasure" in MEGA HARD places! 

The next game was pin-the-sherrif-star-on-woody. Again, my clever Father in law jacked up an almost life-size Woody picture for the kids to pin onto. The picture was printed and then taped onto a foam board. (google poster printing for ideas how to do this). We had a spare Sheriff star which was the perfect size for pinning. The kids were blind folded and then placed the star. They were actually pretty good at it. Some of the adults had a go afterwards and they were pretty rubbish to be honest!

We did pass the parcel last. It was hilarious! We had at least 12 wrappers as there were four prizes for each child + the main prize. My son got the hang of it pretty quickly and kept trying to hold on to the parcel each time it passed by him. They also quickly realised that everyone was going to end up with one of each of the prizes so they wanted to get it done as quickly as possible! Kids are so funny! 

I don't think any party is complete without helium balloons! It really makes a party special. We got these Toy Story balloons at Build a Birthday here in Wellington (an amazing party shop, well worth a visit). The balloons were $1.50 each, and we had them  helium filled at Look Sharp in Mt Wellington. It cost $4 to fill each balloon (we had 6 in total), and although that is quite expensive, the balloons last at least 3 days. We had them filled on Saturday morning, and they were still floating up to the ceiling on Monday afternoon! We let the kids release one into the sky after the party, they were mesmerised! Helium balloons are great take home items too. 

Buzz Lightyear hoodie and pants (part of a pj set) from TradeMe, Inflatable Wings from Spotlight, Purple Slippers from the Warehouse

 The main thing was my son had an absolute ball. He loved everything about the party, loved all the games and was super excited about his cake. He was absolutely spoiled with presents-- especially a talking Woody Doll (to go with his Buzz Lightyear). He had a fantastic time playing with his cousins. I'm glad we went to a little more effort this year. It was a little stressful at times, but well worth seeing the joy and excitement on my little boys face.