M&M Cake! Ethan's 8th Birthday

Boys and sugar are quite a combination.  8 is an age where they are growing out of wanting anything character like on their things.  They still play with those things and their friends do too, but we are over character themed birthday parties.  Which is okay with me.  I was given free reign to do pretty much whatever I wanted.  Ethan is pretty laid back when it comes to stuff like that.  I asked him what flavor cake and frosting he wanted and he also picked out what went in his party favor bags.

I took the little ones to Target and was totally inspired by some multi-colored large polka dot wrapping paper I found.  So I bought it and went from there.  It had red, blue, green, yellow and orange and I used those colors as my "theme."  For invitations I used colored construction paper and stamps to create the invitation and hand wrote the details.  It would have been too boring to just leave it that way so I attached a clothespin magnet so that the recipient could put it on their refrigerator and it wouldn't get forgotten.  I also created an email invitation on Punchbowl.  It was really easy and it even would tell me when/if people had viewed the email.

I love how Ethan's cake turned out.  To go with my multi-colored polka dot theme, lets just call it my dot theme from here on out because this might get long otherwise, I got a family size bag (I didn't even know they made this size) of regular M&M's.   We ate all of the brown ones.  I made a 3 layer chocolate cake and then put the M&M's on, layering them and creating his name on the second tier.  If you ever make a cake with M&M's be sure to not put it in the refrigerator, about 20 minutes after you pull it out they will start to lose their color because of condensation.  Boo chemistry, boo!  But now you know.

I used the wrapping paper on the table and created a runner and got coordinating paper ware.  For a banner I used my protractor (I really haven't used it since geometry class) and made 4.5 inch circles from construction paper.  I bought reusable vinyl letters from the office section in walmart to spell out "Happy Birthday Ethan" and I used tape to attach them to the patio door in the living room.  For treat bags we put candy and little toy soldiers into clear bags and tied them with ribbon.  The kids sorted and put everything into the bags and all I had to do was tie them up.  I let them blow up some balloons and that was it!

We had pizza from Papa Murphy's, which made the house smell soooo yummy, pop and the kids all sat on the floor in the living room and watched E.T. while they ate their pizza.  No one made a mess and there were lots of laughs.  We did presents and cake and then they played Wii and scared the girls.  I was amazed how much fun they had hiding in the girls room so they could scare them.


I used to stress out about parties and try to make them perfect.  I'm finding that the more simple they are the better.  I do still like them to be somewhat cohesive and I can't help but have a "theme" but kids really just want to play with each other and play with all the new stuff.  I can't remember my 8th birthday.  I've been trying really hard but I have no idea what it was or who I invited or if I even had a party for goodness sake.  Now for a few months off from party planning...

I can't believe he's 8!!!  There are many Star Wars battles on our block...