One blessing after another...: Ben’s Alien Party

It took Ben FOREVER to decide on a birthday theme this year. I finally had to threaten to re-use all of the My Little Pony decorations in order to get him to make a decision. He quickly came up with an “Out of Space Alien Party”. It was really fun to involve him in so much of the planning now that he's older. He helped me pick the alien to go on his invitations and informed me that he didn’t want his picture on it (like Gracie’s had) because “Everyone I’m inviting knows what I look like.” Fair enough. :)

We did it at the pool again this year. Good thing because I think it was 286° outside.

The decorations were all blue, green & orange to match his invitation.

Ben & Brian (& Pinterest) helped me to come up with space themed foods. We had orbit oranges, asteroids (cheese balls), extra-terrestrials (teddy grahams), rocket fuel (orange kool-aid), & planet pops (chocolate covered marshmallows).

I would like to go on the record and say that the marshmallow pops were a hot mess (figuratively and literally). They were advertised as an “easy alternative to cake pops". While I’ve never made cake pops, I can say that these weren’t “easy” and certainly didn’t take 20 minutes as the tutorial promised. They also turned into gooey blobs within seconds of being set on the table due to the aforementioned inferno-like temperatures. Ah, well, live and learn.

I’m melting… melting!

I pinned a bunch of different space and alien cakes that I thought I could maybe pull off and Ben picked his favorite. He requested a flying saucer one. The party started at 4 p.m. I finished the cake at 3 p.m. Slightly stressful. Why can I not learn to decorate the cake AHEAD OF TIME?!?!?! It was all worth it ~ Ben loved his cake and the “red alien with 4 eyes, 3 horns and fangs” as requested.

We also had cupcakes with little mini aliens on top (fondant wrapped gum-balls).

Ben & his guests got right to playing and splashing around in the pool.

Grace & Noah also found pool buddies to hang out with.

Then we took a quick break to eat the planet pops before they completely liquified.

After pops there was a bit more swimming, and then the pizza arrived.

This is how aliens eat pizza.

Gracie and Daddy enjoying their dinner together.

For a game, Brian led the boys in a round of Frisbee golf. It was really simple and fun and the Frisbees doubled as flying saucer favors for our friends to take home with them.