Mario (Birthday) Party
There’s no party like a Mario Party! Technically, our birthday boy asked for a Yoshi Party, so we did our best to keep him and Yoshi the main party people with some help from Yoshi’s famous friends. In case you are throwing a Yoshi, Luigi, Princess Peach, Daisy, or even a Mario Party yourself, here’s a quick rundown of the party fun:
Lunch
Pizza: I figured the Mario Brothers are big fans of our local pizzeria and kept things easy by ordering a couple of pies. Remember, it doesn’t have to be homemade to be special!
Yoshi-roni and Cheese: The birthday boy’s favorite boxed macaroni dyed green – although, if I could do it again, I’d have kept some of it yellow. The green made some of our younger guests unsure, and I always prefer to have as many “safe foods” available for kiddos as possible.
Fire Flower Veggie Tray: Shout out to Pinterest for this idea. . Again, I kept it easy with store bought dip and the birthday boy helped me arrange cucumbers, broccoli, red and yellow peppers, and grape tomatoes into our Fire Flower shape.
Piranha Plant Fruit Kabobs: Again, another Pinterest find that I can’t seem to find the original source to credit. Delicious and really cute on the table. I simply cut a “v” out of the end of a strawberry, slid it onto a kabob and beaded green grapes behind.
Bakery Cookies: My cookies are good, but these Grove Street cookies were better! #smarternotharder
Yoshi Punch: I’ll even share my recipe with you:
Ingredients: 1 packet of lemon lime Koolaid
Directions: Follow packet instructions
No need to overcomplicate, right?
Princess Peach Tea: Again, no need to overcomplicate, you can grab the powdered variety or brew your favorite iced tea and drain the syrup from a can of peaches into it. Peachy!
Decor
Birthday Pictures: I picked up cheapy frames at the Dollar Tree added pictures from each of his birthdays so far and used those to decorate the mantel. I have a small tub where I store our birthday banners to reuse and will do the same with these. Not only was it a fun walk down memory lane, I’ll reuse them for the next birthday boy and next party.
Balloons, Balloons, and More Balloons: Our local Dollar Tree was out of gold stars, so silver it was! I drew eyes on with sharpie since I love a theme.
Games
Pin the Tongue on Yoshi: My birthday came up with this one all on his own. We followed along with an Art Hub for Kids video to help us draw the Yoshi and cut tongues out of pink posterboard.
Yoshi Egg Hunt: Another idea all over Pinterest. Since our cousins at the party range in age from 11 months to 9 years, everyone got their own color of egg to hunt for. We tied it into the theme by assigning each guest to be a color of Yoshi to correspond to their egg. The 3 year olds could find their candy-filled eggs scattered across the lawn, while the big kids’ were a little tricker. Everyone also found a golden egg with a crisp dollar bill.
Goomba Stomp: A hit! Another pinterest find, this one from Jeni Ro Designs. Her party post was so, so fun and had so many great ideas. Putting those goombas together ended up being a bit of a labor of love – we used gold balloons since brown was nowhere to be found. The face is just drawn onto white computer paper, cut out, and glued on with Elmer’s and only took 3 episodes of Sweet Magnolias to make 20. They doubled up as décor, though, so that made me feel a tiny bit better.
One more little thought: my insta-worthy party is insta-worthy because I say it’s insta-worthy and uploaded it. Jeni’s gorgeous, creative Mario party is worthy because she says it is. And the mama who ordered pizzas and met everyone at the park – well, that’s a worthy party too. Did your guest of honor feel honored and special? Mission accomplished. That’s worthy of celebrating.
