How To: Solar System Birthday

Today's post is a little more mom and a little less food blogger. As you know, Logan turned 5 last week. We had our Solar System birthday party on Saturday and I have to share pictures and details. We were all so happy how it turned out, especially birthday boy. And the nice thing too is Logan and his friends are all at that age where they just play, instead of all the moms telling all the kids what they should be doing. Everyone was just so excited about everything. Definitely a fun party!

The weather really cleared up in the afternoon and the kids were able to play in the backyard for quite a while with the sun shining. A few moms were there with the kids while others dropped the kids off. It was the perfect balance of having a little extra adult help without feeling over crowded.

Our Snacks:

• Alien Heads = Grapes
• Saturn's Rings = Lifesavers
• Shooting Stars = Star shaped cheese
• Flying Saucers = Round Crackers
• Asteroids = Popcorn
• Crescent Moons = Apple Wedges
• Astronaut Water = Capri Sun Roarin' Waters
• Planet Cupcakes = Chocolate Buttermilk Cupcakes with Vanilla Almond Frosting
  

I kept the snacks simple and inexpensive, because I didn't want to go totally crazy with preparations or spend a ton of money. They're just 5 year olds. The kids were CRACKING UP LAUGHING at all the funny names I had given the food, like it was the most hilarious thing they had ever heard.

Party Favors:

• Orbit Gum (get it??? Like a planet's orbit. TOO PERFECT. I couldn't pass it up when I saw it in the candy isle.)
• Bouncy balls with silver glitter inside (pretend the silver glitter pieces are stars)
• Glow in the dark foam star stickers
• The Planets, by Holst
• A solar system booklet I put together and got printed on card stock at Kinko's. They ended up being too thick to staple, so I put them together with rings instead. That also gives the flexibility to add more pages if you want to.

Again on keeping it simple. I bought the gum in multi-packs so it cost less, balls and stickers were inexpensive. The biggest cost was the booklet, at about $1.66 each. I made the cover to match his invites and had pages on each of the planets with a little fact. I printed only the cover in color (cost less) and kept the inside coloring book style. I had really wanted to let Logan decorate the brown sacks with space stickers, but I couldn't find any! Everything is characterized these days, so we printed NASA's logo and he taped them on.

For our decorations I put a disposable black tablecloth with glow in the dark stars all over on our kitchen table. We hung blue and black balloons on each chair at the table and then big clusters behind the table around our windows.

Logan loved all this presents and has been having so much fun this weekend playing with them. We went to the park this afternoon and flew his new kite and built a lego car this morning (his first set of big boy legos). I really love this book he got. Isn't it perfect??

I really owe a big thanks to all my friends on Twitter. You guys were invaluable sources of ideas and creativity for this party when my brain was too tired to think. We had a very busy week with lots of appointments that weren't near our house. One being getting Logan tested for Celiac Disease. I had so much to do and wasn't sleeping well and was so worried about how the party would turn out. In the end I pulled it together. I got by with a little help from my friends (more like a lot) and not much sleep. But it was worth it! And now Logan can't stop being so amazed at the cool party and the fact that he's now FIVE years old. I can hardly believe it myself!