On October 15th, we celebrated Joshua's birthday with a party at the Oak Shelter at Black Hoof Park.
He had said he wanted a Batman party. I didn't do a fondant cake for Hannah's party, but the best design I could think of for a Batman cake worked a lot better with fondant, so that's what I did. The skyscrapers on the side were a little rushed, as that was the last thing I did, so they weren't the best, but I was pretty happy overall with how the cake turned out. I combined that with black and yellow cupcakes, and black (and gray) and yellow plates, plasticwear, and napkins, as well as some hanging decorations in the shelter to complete the theme.
The shelter was a great venue. One thing that they don't do well is make it clear when it's reserved. We had the shelter for the whole afternoon and evening, but when I showed up to decorate prior to the party, there were a couple other groups in there, including a pretty large wedding party. But I needed to get set up, so I let them know that we had it reserved, and they relocated elsewhere, which was kind of a lengthy process This left me scrambling to make up for lost time, but thankfully Kirk and Joanna showed up early and helped me finish the decorations. As you can see, the shelter was large, which we needed, since we had invited his whole class from school in addition to a few select kids from church (Grayson was the only one who could come), and his cousins, the Hansons, and Alex's kids and Alaina's kids, and the adults our family and also Halie.
Ron helped out by doing all the hot dog cooking, and Matt helped manage the bonfire, both of which were a huge help to me, as I had to manage many other things as the night when on.
When it was time to do cake, all the kids were drawn in like bugs to a light on a summer night.
And speaking of summer nights, even though it's October, the weather was unseasonably warm, so it was a very pleasant evening. And speaking of lights, the lights in the shelter apparently come on automatically, and it seemed they came on way later than they should have. It was quite dark for awhile, and I was getting concerned that the lights might not come on at all. But finally they did. In the meantime, one of our coolest decorations had their chance to literally shine, as we had some light-up balloons hung throughout the shelter. They were regular balloons that you blow up, but they have little lights in them to make the balloons glow and flash in the darkness.
When we asked Joshua what kind of party he wanted to have this year, he said he wanted it outside at nighttime, and he wanted s'mores (likely remembering
the kids' joint party from last year). That's what led us to Black Hoof, as it's a park we already like to go to, and one of the shelters they have, the Oak Shelter, has a huge firepit. Again, thanks to Matt making sure it was ready to go, we had a nice fire in the firepit, which allowed us to cook s'mores (thanks to Halie for managing the s'more station). They were a hit, because everyone loves s'mores, of course.
Finally we opened gifts, and Joshua got a lot of cool new toys and activities that he's very excited to get to play with and use. It was really a pretty great party from every perspective. The weather was great, and everyone had a lot of fun, especially our birthday boy, Joshua.
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