Food Fun Family

How To Throw An Epic Doctor Who Party for Kids

Lolli — Tue, 26 May 2015 17:36:54 +0000

Before my youngest turned 10 last week, he declared that he wanted a Doctor Who themed birthday party. Now, throwing parties is not my thing. Parties take a whole lot out of me, and so I try to avoid being a party host as much as possible. But AJ is my youngest and he’s definitely had the least number of birthday parties over the years…and not just because he has had the fewest birthdays.

My little Doctor in front of the TARDIS “welcome” door before his party. PS – apparently, Doctors don’t need shoes.

So I said he could have his Doctor Who themed party. We made TARDIS invitations (I simply found an image of a TARDIS online and added his info in the windows and blue “boxes”) and sent them off to all of his friends.

As much as the party exhausted me (I crashed in my room as soon as everyone left), we had a blast and I wouldn’t mind throwing another Doctor Who party sometime…in the future. Even his friends who had never seen Doctor Who enjoyed the party!

Doctor Who Party Games

We played 4 Doctor Who themed games: Doctor Who BINGO, Blink-Don’t Blink (a Weeping Angels version of Red Light-Green Light), TARDIS piñata, and Pin the Face on Cassandra. Amazon has some really cute and affordable Doctor Who mini figures to give out as prizes or as party favors.

Doctor Who BINGO

Doctor Who BINGO was a great way to get the party rolling, especially for the kids that didn’t know all of their Doctor Who lingo. I made up several BINGO boards and printed them off for each of the kids and then had a bag full of the “master” pictures. Because I love to share, I’m including the BINGO game boards here to download. Just print them off and use them for your own Doctor Who party of game night with friends. Use as many of the boards as you need, but be sure to print off the 2 master image sheets so that the “caller” can choose the square to call out.

Note: I printed my game boards off on white card stock paper.

Also needed: pennies or other small objects to mark each square as it’s called out.

Blink-Don’t Blink

Blink-Don’t Blink is best played outside, or in a room with lots of space. One child (leader) stands alone and the rest of the kids (the Weeping Angels) stand in a line at least 20 feet away. When the leader has his back turned, the Weeping Angels can walk or run towards the leader, but when the leader turns around to face the other kids, they must freeze. If the leader catches another child moving, they have to return to the start line. Game continues until one of the runners has tagged the leader.

ALTERNATE GAME PLAY: If a “Weeping Angel” is caught moving, then he/she replaces the first child as leader. The leader can either be “out” or join the rest of the runners trying the catch the leader.

Doctor Who Piñata

My daughter custom-made our TARDIS piñata using balloons covered in newspaper and watered-down glue (she’s a very talented piñata maker!). We filled it with candy and toys and hung it from a tree outside. And then we blind folded the kids and let them go crazy. I made sure that I backed WAY up…

NOTE: I found a few TARDIS piñatas on Etsy if you’re not up to making one yourself.

Pin the Face on Cassandra

I love this version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey! I started by giving each child a blank piece of paper and instructed them to each draw a face. We had some pretty creative faces!

We taped a large piece of paper onto the wall (cut like Cassandra) and drew a circle where her face should go. Each child took a turn being blind-folded. I spun each kids around 3 times, and they tried to tape their face as close to the circle on Cassandra as possible. The kids had a blast “directing” their friends towards Cassandra!

Gallifrey Cake

I was planning on making a TARDIS sheet cake, but after having such success with the blue zebra cake I made for his actual birthday, I decided to make a Gallifrey Cake using the same method.

I colored white cake mix orange, yellow, and brown and layered the colors in two round cake pans. I covered the entire cake in homemade whipped cream and yellow and orange sprinkles, and then wrote a few Gallifreyan symbols on top (someone asked if it spelled out AJ’s name in Gallifreyan, and NO I am not fluent in Gallifreyan, so those are just random letters…).

Adipose Marshmallows

I thought it would be fun to make a few Adipose with Jumbo Marshmallows for the bodies and mini marshmallows for the arms and legs…and it WAS fun!

I had no idea how popular they’d be, though! More kids ate Adipose than cake and ice cream. We had to throw a few more together in the middle of the party. Luckily, they’re super simple to put together. I used edible frosting cement to “glue” the arms and legs onto the body and then drew the eyes and face on with a small tube of black frosting.

For a fun display, we sat the Adipose around a cupcake holder.

We also served Time Lord Soda (Sprite mixed with blue Gatorade) and P-P-Pizza. I was originally planning on serving the traditional fish fingers and custard, but I ran out of steam and worried that 10 year olds wouldn’t eat it, anyway.

There was SO much more we could have done, but we only had 2 hours of party time. I think I’ll have to save the rest of my ideas for the next party…

Everyone Deserves a Special Day #PartyReddi

Lolli — Thu, 25 Sep 2014 00:14:35 +0000

Birthdays are pretty frequent occurrence at our house, with 7 birthdays in 7 different months. I was excited participate in the Reddi-wip #PartyReddi campaign, because who doesn’t love an excuse to celebrate a birthday? Although I have been compensated, all opinions are my own.

No matter if we’re celebrating a first birthday or a 40th (ahem…my 40th birthday is in a few weeks!), every birthday boy and girl deserves special treatment on their special day. Even when they have more than a few birthdays under their belt…

Last month, when the family was driving back across the country towards home after our 6-week-long road trip, my husband turned 43. Because we were literally on our last stretch back home, we couldn’t buy a cake and I didn’t even have a chance to wrap any presents. By the time we pulled into our neighborhood, we were all too wiped out to even sing happy birthday. The next morning, we woke up early to start a new school year, and we’ve been moving at a fast pace ever since. His birthday was passed over and I have been feeling horrible about it.

So this week, we did a birthday do-over. Everyone deserves a special day…even if it’s not on their special day.

Birthdays in our house always include a cake. They start out with presents in the morning, lots of picture opps, and they usually include a meal out. When the kids have a birthday on a school day, I pick them up for a lunch date, just the two of us. I think I enjoy our birthday dates just as much as they do (my kids birthdays are pretty big days in MY life, after all!).

I wanted to make sure that we didn’t forget our August birthday, so I started making some plans. When I was doing my grocery shopping at Walmart this week, I ordered a cake from the bakery and was thrilled to learn that the Walmart bakery offers free smash cakes with a $14.98 bakery purchase. Although smash cakes are traditionally a 1st birthday thing, I thought it would be fun to have a little smash cake just for the birthday boy, even if he wasn’t up for shoving his face in the cake.

To make the birthday celebration even more special, I picked up some Reddi-wip whipped cream and some fresh strawberries. I love adding fresh berries to cakes, and Walmart makes it so easy to get extra party supplies and foods since they’re all in the same place. No need to run all over town to pick up the bakery items, the balloons, the wrapping paper, and the grocery items at different stops.

Make party prep easy with these items at Walmart:

Smash Cakes: Walmart has free smash cakes with a $14.98 bakery minimum purchase. It can be any combination of cakes, cupcakes, and cupcake cakes.
Angel Food Cake: Angel Food cake is one of my favorite types of cake. It’s light and sweet, and perfect when topped with strawberries and whipped cream.

Helium Balloons: Walmart fills Latex balloons for 50 cents (per balloon). Walmart also sells Mylar balloons at various prices (filled for free).
Reddi-wip: Cake is always better with whipped cream! Walmart is offering a $1 off of 2 Reddi-wip cans with this coupon.

How do you celebrate birthdays in your family? Do you go all out and plan a big party or do you keep it quiet and simple and bring the party to your house?

Bounce U: The Ultimate Birthday Party!

Lolli — Wed, 02 Apr 2014 15:54:19 +0000

We were invited by our local Bounce U location to celebrate my daughter’s 11th birthday with a few friends. Although the party was complimentary, all thoughts, opinions, and photos are my own.

I’m not much of a party-planning person. I love the idea of celebrating each of my five kids’ birthdays, but the thought of planning a party (and everything that goes in to running a successful party) stresses me out. So when Bounce U contacted me about hosting a party at one of their nearby locations – just weeks before my youngest daughter turned 11 – I couldn’t believe my luck!

My kids have attended Bounce U parties before and the response is always that Bounce U is the ULTIMATE birthday party location. Reese was beyond excited when I told her that she could invite a dozen of her friends to her very own Bounce U party this year.

Not only were we able to book a party for her, but we were able to get the special Cosmic Bounce (where they turn out the lights and turn ON the black lights. They gave each of the kids glow necklaces (I brought a few extras from the dollar store) and everyone glowed! It was a fun dimension to their party, for sure – perfect for a group of giggling 11-year-old girls!

(It might be a little harder than usual to catch pictures during Cosmic Bounce, but I can assure you – it is WILD and crazy-fun!)

Here are just a few of the amazing benefits of throwing your own party at Bounce U:

• The kids have an absolute blast and wear themselves out with physical activity that does include tearing your house apart. Climbing, bouncing, sliding, balls, games, you name it!

• Bounce U party pros run the whole party for you, from gathering presents and coats at the beginning through getting on the equipment and bouncing with the kids to scooping out the ice cream and serving the kids. They even loaded all of the presents into my car at the end.

• No clean up or set up. No messy house. No chocolate cake ground into my living room carpet.

• Bounce U will get everything for you – from decorations to pizza for the kids and grown up food for the parents. And goody bags (and these are goody bags that kids actually want!).

• A stress-free birthday party experience for everyone.

• Bounce U goes beyond birthdays. The fun includes Parent’s Night Out (drop the kids off for some supervised fun!), Open Bounce, camps, fund raisers, team parties, and more.

(Our party started out with a safety video and an energetic introduction from our party pros)

We were extremely impressed with the helpfulness and patience of the two party pros that helped with our party. They took pictures through the entire party which they played during pizza and cake time in the party room (the pictures are also available for purchase on a disk so you don’t even have to worry about taking pictures if you don’t want to).

I noticed quite a bit of 11-year-old flirting with the male party pro (mostly in the form of hitting him with the blow up hammer) and he didn’t even blink and eye. What a great sport! he didn’t even miss a beat.

We opted to bring our own cupcakes and ice cream, but you can also order cake or cupcakes and ice cream from Bounce U before your party and they’ll have it ready for you on party day. I just loved that I didn’t have to run back and forth serving cake, scooping ice cream, or pouring drink refills. We really could just sit back and relax and ENJOY the party.

Our party pros scooped ice cream while they helped the birthday girl decorate the cupcake tower (which they had!) and insert all 30-something candles. I never would have braved lighting all of those candles, but they were awesome!

And, no, she didn’t blow them all out in one breath!

Have you ever been to a birthday party at Bounce U? What are your favorite kind of kid birthday parties?

Find a Bounce U location near you!

The New Nintendo Wii U – Fun for All Ages at Our #WiiU Party

Lolli — Mon, 13 May 2013 22:00:30 +0000

I am a #NintendoEnthused Nintendo brand ambassador and received a Wii U console, games, and everything needed to throw a great Wii U party. No other compensation was received, but affiliate links are used within this post. All thoughts and photos are my own.

I am not typically a party-thrower. I love attending parties – eating the food, chatting with friends, playing games, dancing, the whole nine yards – but I am not a fan of being in charge. It just doesn’t come naturally to me. Last month, my friends at Nintendo made it easy for me to throw one of the best family parties I’ve ever been to, all thanks to the Wii U and some awesome Nintendo representatives who led us in games and brought some delicious foods.

(I mean, look at that fruit platter. And the Chipotle burritos? You wish you’d been there, too…right?)

Our party was not all about the food, though. The Wii U was the star of the show for sure.

About a week before the party, a new Wii U console and 3 games arrived in the mail. The kids and I experimented with the games and new features of the Wii U before the party unveiling, but even we discovered some amazing (and sometimes surprising) new Wii U features.

Wii U Games featured at our party:

Nintendo Land – (included in the Wii U Deluxe Set package) is a fun and lively virtual theme park filled with games based on popular Nintendo “worlds.” Each attraction features unique game play experiences made possible by the Wii U GamePad controller. Throughout Nintendo Land, different games allow players to play solo, compete against other players, or even team up to play cooperatively. Up to 5 players can participate in incredibly fun (party friendly) multi-player modes in several of the games. There are 12 unique attractions featured in Nintendo Land, including Ninja Castle (my favorite), Pikmin Adventure, The Legend of Zelda Battle Quest, Fruit Cart, and the extremely popular Ghost Mansion.

The BEST part about Nintendo Land was the multi player mode. We had kids of all ages AND adults playing together, and my husband commented more than once how much he loved that we were playing with each other and not just against a computer. It brought the game play to a whole new and exciting level.

SiNG Party – It’s not every day that you’ll get me in front of a crowd to sing karaoke, but if anyone can get me to do it, it’s my friend Safire. The new SiNG Party game was perfect for a party. Not only do you get the full karaoke experience, with words appearing on the GamePad for the singers to follow, but the rest of the party-goers can follow the dance moves on the big screen and follow along with singing certain parts. The best part about the way this was set up (with one or two singing and everyone else dancing and clapping on cue) was that those not singing didn’t have to awkwardly stand around listening to one person sing. Everyone was having fun at the same time.

Just take a look at my crazy husband and youngest daughter singing Love Shack together…

Our awesome Nintendo crew jumped in and sang, danced, and played right along side us…

Super Mario Bros. U – for all you Mario fans out there, this newest Super Mario Bros. game is sure to be a hit, with the characters and familiar scenery (along with new scenes, of course) that you love. Up to five players can join in on the fun, with up to four using standard Wii remotes and one on the Wii U GamePad controlling things “behind the scenes.”

Wii U Highlights:

Video on Demand: Wii U owners can access their Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus, or Netlix accounts as well as watch YouTube video.

Nintendo TVii: Nintendo TVii makes watching TV even more engaging (and simpler, too) by bringing together a program guide, remote control, and social interaction into one system. I love the second-screen TV watching experience (you can find out more about what you’re watching, learn about actors and actresses, etc). You can even comment on what you’re watching on live TV via Miiverse, Facebook, and Twitter.

Miiverse: Miiverse is a global community in which gamers from al over the world can share their experiences, discuss games, and learn more about the video games they’re playing. Through the Miiverse, you can challenge friends to play together, or reach out for help on a level you can’t figure out.

Wii U Chat: Wii U owners can video chat with each other using the built-in camera and microphone on the Wi U GamePad.

Internet Browser: Wii U transforms your TV into a browser so that you can surf the net from the comfort of your couch. You can actually browse the internet on the GamePad while someone watching still something on TV.

Meet the new Wii U GamePad:

It creates a “second window” into the video game world, thus removing the traditional barriers between games, players and the TV.
It also offers a new way for viewers to engage with their favorite entertainment.
The GamePad has a 6.2-inch, 16:9 aspect ratio LCD touch screen, plus traditional button controls and two analog sticks. Inputs include a +Control Pad, L/R sticks, L/R stick buttons, A/B/X/Y buttons, L/R buttons, ZL/ZR buttons, Power button, HOME button, -/SELECT button, +/START button, and TV CONTROL button.
Includes motion control (powered by an accelerometer, gyroscope and geomagnetic sensor), a front-facing camera, a microphone, stereo speakers, rumble features, a sensor bar, an included stylus and support for Near Field Communication (NFC) functionality.
Powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery and weighs approximately 1.1 pounds

About the Wii U – Good to know:

Price – $299.99 for Basic Set (white) / $349.99 for Deluxe Set (black)
The new Wii U has 8GB (basic set) or 32GB (deluxe set) internal flash memory, plus support for external USB hard drives for additional storage.
Compatible with Wii remotes and games – Nearly all Wii software and accessories can be used with Wii U.
Energy Efficiency – Wii U utilizes specially designed power-saving features to lower its energy consumption.

Have you had the chance to try out the Wii U yet? If not, grab a friend who has one already, invite yourself voer (I suggest offering to bring goodies to eat) and then prepare yourself to get hooked. We love ours!

Birthday Party #PSF Give Me Your Best Shot

Lolli — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:21:08 +0000

Reese turned 10 last month. We had to wait for a few weeks after her birthday to have her party, but it was worth the wait.

Reese is at such a funny age – that in-between stage where she stops being a little girl and starts becoming a young woman. It’s kind of driving me crazy that my little girl – my youngest daughter – is entering the tween years. And getting clothes and earrings and One Direction presents for her birthday.

Sigh.

By the way, you may notice that Reese is wearing a Halloween shirt in some of the pictures and a perry shirt in others. She changed. And, yes, she wore a Halloween shirt at her end-of-March birthday party to go along with her Monster High party theme.

The week before the party, a huge box of Blue Bunny ice cream treats arrived, and although it was torture to leave unopened boxes of ice cream tempting me in the freezer, I was strong (and threatened everyone else in the family) so that we could use the ice cream for her party.

Luckily (for me) only 3 girls came to the party, so we had a ton of treats left over to enjoy long after the party. Here’s what we got:

Birthday Party Ice Cream Sandwiches: oh my goodness! These were surprisingly delicious. I’m not usually a huge fan of birthday cake flavored ice cream, but these ice cream sandwiches were incredible. One of the best things about them? Unlike most ice cream sandwiches, these are so thick!

Simply Vanilla Premium Ice Cream Sandwiches: These are nothing like your standard ice cream sandwiches. Like the Birthday Party ice cream sandwiches, they are super thick. Definitely premium treats!

Cadbury English Toffee Ice Cream and Cadbury Royal Dark Ice Cream Bars: I love Cadbury chocolate, and these ice cream bars are SO good. I could eat a whole box in one sitting. I just can’t decide if I like the dark chocolate or the English Toffee better.

Mini Swirls Vanilla Ice Cream Cones: I love ice cream cones lined AND covered in chocolate. I mean, what’s not to love?

Which ice cream treat looks the most appetizing to you?

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

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Disclosure: I received a box full of Blue Bunny ice cream treats. No other compensation was received. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Sweet 16 – The Chipotle Birthday Party

Lolli — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 20:29:31 +0000

I think I’ve mentioned before that I am not a party organizer. My poor kids have suffered through the years with boring – or non-existent – birthday parties. Luckily, my oldest daughter, KitKat, was determined to have a party for her “sweet 16” birthday and did all the planning for it to happen. All I had to do was shop, cook, and show up. That’s my kind of party!

KitKat decided to gather as many Chipotle copycat recipes as she could find online – Chipotle beef, chicken, pulled pork, cilantro lime rice, corn salsa, guacamole, and tomato salsa. The result was an incredible feast that rivaled anything you can get at the restaurant. We were in heaven! The only problem? Somehow I missed getting pictures of all the food (parties throw me off!). Despite that little mistake, I will be sharing all of the recipes that we made shortly. You will want to try them, I promise!

I am still astonished that I’ve got a 16 year old daughter, but I’m grateful that she is a good person with excellent friends.

The cake was specially picked out by KitKat, based on a cake that she had tasted at another friend’s birthday party. It was a marble cake with chocolate buttercream filling and a thin chocolate truffle frosting on top from Safeway. She had been dreaming of (and talking about) this cake for weeks before her party, and it definitely lived up to the hype that she had made.

Oh, and apparently we needed a boy scout at the party to help with the fire. My fire was wimpy, but it was still decent enough to make some really yummy s’mores.

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

Marvel’s Avengers Comes to DVD on 9/25 – Time to Celebrate!

Lolli — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:00:52 +0000

It was my kids who got me excited to see the Avengers in the theaters back in May. But by opening weekend, I was gearing to go….and I headed to an early matinee the day it came to theaters. I was blown away.

Since then, our home has been transformed into a full blown Avengers fan-house. The girls’ bedroom is plastered with Avengers posters. Every piece of Necco’s school supply haul has something Avengers on it. AJ’s 7th birthday party was Avengers-themed.

And we’ve been counting down the days until the Avengers comes out on DVD. If you’re anything like us (or even a less-intense version of us) you know already that the DVD is coming to stores tomorrow (Tuesday, September 25). Since my kids are off school on Wednesday, we’re planning a late evening Avengers movie party. I can’t wait!

Avengers Family Fun Night

This past week, we planned an Avengers Family Fun Night to get in the mood for the DVD (not a far stretch for us). I shopped at Walmart for a bunch of party supplies and Avengers-themed fresh Marketplace pizza. I had recently downloaded the SuperHero Augmented Reality app on my iPad and my Android phone…and I was curious to see what the app could do. I had a hard time getting the displays at Walmart to come to life (and then all of the pictures I took of the special displays turned out as big red snow storms, so obviously Loki sabotaged my mission!) but luckily that didn’t deter us from having lots of fun. I had some pretty big plans for our family party…

Our Avengers pumpkins

Because Fall has been creeping in to our town, and because I’ve been seeing pumpkins all over the place, I thought that our Fun Night could be built around painting Avengers-themed pumpkins. With three teens/pre-teens, I never know what to expect from family activities. It’s hard to please the older kids. I don’t know if I owe the night’s success to my awesome ideas, my kids love for all things Avengers, or their happy moods after having pizza and soda for dinner. Whatever the case, our Avenger pumpkins were a total hit.

All we needed were pumpkins for each family member and a bunch of colors of acrylic paints and paint brushes.

Ta-da! The finished pumpkins: Hawkeye, Captain America, The Hulk, Black Widow, and Loki.

Our Avengers dinner

The Walmart that’s closest to me doesn’t have a full grocery or deli, so I drove a little further up north to the bigger, nicer Walmart to check out the Marketplace and get a few pizzas for dinner. Holy cow! The Marketplace fresh pizzas exceeded my expectations. I could tell from the display at the store that they were loaded with yummy toppings.

Everyone loved the pizza, and I loved the prices ($9 for a super-sized supreme and $7 for cheese). We also loved that the pizza boxes came to life through the app.

I added a delicious Hulk-green spinach salad (made with baby spinach, feta cheese, dried cranberries, fresh blueberries, sliced mushrooms, and raspberry vinagrette). I finished the night off with a no-bake Captain America Cheesecake…and five happy kids.

The Avengers Graphic Novel

A few days after our party, we received a limited-edition Avengers graphic novel. The kids are loving it! Here are the details on the Walmart exclusive graphic novel:

All new, original graphic novel featuring all the Avengers.
Modernized graphic novel that celebrates these superhero icons that have defined pop culture.
Over 100 pages of full-color content.
Limited quantity – collector’s item.
Available at Walmart in the exclusive Blu-ray combo pack gift set for $24.95.

Now, we’re counting down the hours before we can head back to Walmart to buy the DVD. Will you be adding the Avengers to your DVD collection?

Connect with Marvel’s The Avengers:

Marvel.com https://marvel.com/
@Marvel on Twitter https://twitter.com/marvel
Marvel on Facebook https://facebook.com/marvel
Exclusive Blu-Ray/DVD/Novel Combo Pack at Walmart

Disclosure: I am a member of the Collective Bias Social Fabric® Community. This content has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias and Marvel. #MarvelAvengersWMT #CBias #SocialFabric. All opinions and ideas are my own. See my entire shop and preparation on my #MarvelAvengersWMT Google+ album.