A Web Slinging Birthday

  Over Christmas break my oldest turned 6 years old, and this year he requested a Spiderman birthday party. I keep trying to convince him to have his party theme be Mo Willem's pigeon books, but it's his birthday and he wanted Spiderman. Not that there's anything wrong with Spiderman, I just have ideas I want to use for the pigeon! Maybe next year?  We came up with some good things for his chosen theme, and he and his friends had a lot of fun.

  We had two power outages over the break, so it was a little crazy getting everything ready, but thankfully we had power the day of his party and we were able to pull everything together just in time! With the power outages I didn't get the chance to bake a cake, so I bought one from the store and added some of my own decorations.

 I was excited to find a Bob Evans cake at the store. The restaurant isn't around anymore, but back when it was, they would give you a free chocolate cake if you went there the week of your birthday. Myself, my older brother, and oldest younger sister have birthdays all within the same week in December, so each December we would go to Bob Evans for dinner and get three free chocolate cakes, one for each of us. The extra special thing was that one of those cakes was always eaten with no plates and no utensils! It was so fun to dive right in and get delicious chocolate frosting all over our faces.  Now that I know I can still get the cakes this tradition can start up again!

 For Sam's birthday I jazzed up the cake by adding a web on top with royal icing. The icing was thinner and runnier than I would have liked, but a spider web doesn't need to be that neat, so it worked out. I colored some store bought frosting red and blue, and put them both in the same piping bag for a swirled effect. I used a star tip to make a border around the bottom, and a round tip to turn a gumdrop into a spider, and write a birthday message on the platter.


Activities at this age are pretty easy. I printed off some free Spiderman coloring pages for when everybody started arriving, and for the most part everyone just played together. Though we did have one big activity that was a huge hit.

We got a can of silly string for each party guest and wrapped it with a label I printed out that read "Spider Web."

Now, silly string can be very messy, and in the middle of winter, doing this activity outside wasn't really an option. With the help of some plastic table cloths, we were able to keep things relatively neat and easy to clean up. 

We put one plastic tablecloth on the wall and taped pictures of Spiderman villains to it. Just print, cut out, and stick! We also put a plastic tablecloth on the floor for easy clean up. The kids stood on the edge of the tablecloth on the floor and took turns blasting the bad guys with their spider webs! Everyone was cheering and smiling, and having a great time. Like I said, it was a big hit!

Happy birthday Sam! I've loved watching you become the amazing 6 year old that you are today, and I can't wait to see how you continue to learn and grow!