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Happy Tuesday!
Any “Stranger Things” fans out there? Today I’m sharing the party that I threw for my son last year. It was his 10th birthday and in our family we have a tradition that when you turn 10, you get to have a sleepover! I know some kids get sleepovers every year, but I’m not that fun of a mom. To be honest, I dread sleepovers with my boys because they don’t ever sleep!! They are up late yelling and laughing (not quietly, of course) and then up at the crack of dawn. No joke. Last month I let them have their cousins over for a sleepover and I caught them up and with the bedroom light on at 4:00 in the morning!!!!
Anyway, that was a tangent. Back to the party! The second season of Stranger Things was out and the boys and their friends were very into that show. I don’t know if I’m a cool mom or a bad mom for letting them watch it, but my kids love scary movies. Don’t worry, we watched it first and skipped anything that was too intense or inappropriate. That means I’m not an all-the-way bad mom, right? 🙂
No Stranger Things party would be complete without the alphabet and Christmas lights hung, am I right? Obviously I wasn’t going to paint directly on my wall, so I bought a cheap, plastic tablecloth from the Dollar tree and hung it in front of the window. Then, I hung the lights where I wanted them. Lastly, I painted the alpahabet underneath each light bulb. This was also the room where the boys camped out, so it made a cool night light. I strung a few more lights overhead across the room, but I didn’t think to get a picture of that part. Take my word for it, it was pretty cool. The boys loved it!
I found some great cake ideas on pinterest but in the end I really just wanted to do something simple. Cake decorating isn’t really my thing; I have to be in the right mood. So I made cupcakes instead. They were super quick and easy to make. I bought eggo mini waffles to use on some of them and on the others, I drew a cord with black icing and used m&m’s as lightbulbs. Cody’s cupcake got the Demogorgon on top.
For dinner, I kept it simple and served pizza and fruit. I did make some juice for them and served it up in a cup. It was supposed to look like the Upside Down, but I should’ve added blackberries in the cup to make it look more legit. The boys enjoyed it anyway. Between the blackberries are dinosaur fruit snacks, in case you’re wondering.
We played one game that the boys absolutely loved. The objective was to find Will and they have to go through “the upside down” to find him. I bought a cheap, blow-up kiddie pool and filled it with cooked spaghetti noodles (I think it was 5 pounds of noodles). If you do this, make sure you let your noodles cool before throwing them into the pool or your plastic will melt. I added some water so the noodles wouldn’t stick together and it made it nice and mushy. I bought a Will figurine and buried him in the noodles, then blindfolded the boys (one at a time) and timed them on how fast they could find Will. The fastest time was obviously the winner. This game was a HUGE hit!
Can you guess what we had for breakfast the next morning?? That’s right, Eggos! I thought about making homemade waffles but that wouldn’t be true to the show now, would it? This waffle bar couldn’t have been easier!
For party favors, I just filled bags with candy and Stranger Things rubber bracelets that I found online. This party was just my style: simple! You really don’t have to go over the top to give your kids a great party. I think way too often we stress ourselves out when the kids are perfectly fine with cake and festive paper plates. I didn’t hear any complaining over here; the boys had a great time!
Finding figurines was the hard part. I searched stores everywhere and couldn’t find any, so I finally had to go online and order them. They came right in time for the party! I believe I saw some at Hot Topic recently (of course!) but you’ll pay more there. Here are some Stranger Things party props to help you with your party:
