SUPER party.

Today, my little Huddy bear turned three. I remember when I was 9 months pregnant with him, snuggling with Max in his newly appointed big boy bed, and wondering how I could every possibly love another little one the way that I loved him... but I do. My heart totally just grew a size bigger when he came, Grinch-style, and made room for who is now, one of the wildest, most hilarious little people you will ever meet.

Befitting to his love of karate kicking and "blasting" things, Huddy has had an intrinsic love for all things super hero from the time he could say "Batman". So, naturally, a super hero theme was chosen to celebrate our Super Hud. Hud spotted some Spiderman party supplies at Target and almost crapped his pants, so I could have very easily just swooped up the whole set for about 20 bucks and called it a day, but heaven forbid I make something so easy on myself. Instead, I opted for the vintage comic book super hero theme, because admittedly, Spiderman and his ugly plastic banner just didn't jive with my dream of Martha stumbling upon my party pics, (because, hey it could happen) and then insisting I come be one of her contributing editors, or scoop poop for her french bulldog, or, you know, whatever. 

So, inspired by some Etsy and google searching, I dusted off my glue gun and my scissors, enlisted the assistance of some slaves volunteers and got to crafting.

Cupcake toppers were a quick and easy project. Windows 7 has some cool little auto-shapes that made for perfect exclamation borders and I downloaded a boat-load of comic book fonts from dafont.com, which is a serious obsession of mine. Adhere those bad boys onto a little piece of foam board and jam  some Wilton cake pop sticks in the foam with a touch of hot glue and you're good to go.The finished product:

Not bad, eh?

Then, I got it in my mind that I was going to make 16 felt super hero masks. How difficult could it be to cut 16 masks out of felt and sew elastic on? Well, let's just say we'll splurge on the $3.50 a pop masks from Etsy next time because felt now makes me want to jump off a cliff. 

 

At least they looked cute in the goody bags. 

The Spiderman plates ultimately made it in the mix, along with these other guys and some awesome polka dot napkins I scored at Target. 

And of course, what would a party be without a banner that you pay way too much to have printed up at Kinkos? Next time I'm there I'm going to have them print me up some 50 dollar bills and tell them to just keep those as payment because don't they know I want a little cash left over to get a freaking pedicure? There was no pedicure for me, but Super Hud had his sign: 

 

Then there was my masterpiece. My super-legit, made from real old comic books that I had to travel into the dreaded depths of Castro Valley to procure, pennant banner. Behold: 

And, because the hubs thought it was blasphemous when I unveiled the books from the bag only for him to discover that they would be snipped apart for cosmetic purposes, I made certain not to waste their precious contents, and whipped up this little piece of modge podge fun for cupcake presentation: 

My assistant, Max, clearly needs a haircut even worse than I need a pedicure.

Hud was pretty psyched about his decor, but truth be told, he would have been just as happy with wall-to-wall plastic Spiderman, a bounce house and a container full of frosting.

A satisfied customer. 

Also, in another effort to save some bucks, we skimped on the bounce house and borrowed one from a friend. Due to the size, capacities were limited and this thing was like Dorsia on a Saturday night in '83. 

Clearly, someone was much too busy to blow dry their hair before guests arrived. Yikes. 

Also, bonus points if you noticed a small red scavenging butt under the table.

Thanks to Auntie Dana for her dutiful picture taking. I was too busy hauling my fetus around and resisting the urge to guzzle white wine. 

Happy Birthday Hud, you are my whole world.