A Dragon Birthday Party ! (part 1)

I can't believe my little Toby boy is 4! 

Why does time have to fly by so quickly? I snuggled him in bed tonight before he went to sleep, and he said "Momma...I'm glad that I'm four now, but I'd really like to be 21" . HAH! 

Slow down, Tiger!! 

I am NOT ready for that yet!

But for now....he's into dragons. In a big way.

I mean, I should say he IS a dragon. 

But just a "pretty fierce one...not too scary because I wouldn't want to scare Fenton" (his little cousin) :)

So....of course we had to have a dragon party.

Was there ever any question? I'm in wayyy too deep with the parties now to ever NOT have one!

Good thing I kind of love getting ready for them :)

Here's the invitation that went out, made in Picnik, with a picture of my very fierce dragon doing his best ROAR!!

Toby wanted "real dragons" at his party.....so real dragons we had!

I mean, really....what's a dragon party without the dragons?

Oh and the princesses of course. I was informed that there was going to be no girl dragons at the party, only beautiful princesses ;)

So, I found some plain green hoodies at H&M, and added little spikes/horns/wings/tails, and there you have it....DRAGONS!

The two little princesses had tutus, princess hats and magic wands :)

They were a little fiddly to sew, but totally worth it since I now can get my two little dragons to put their "coats" on without any sort of a fuss! We tend to cause a bit of a commotion in malls and grocery stores, as the two dragons arrive, but they love the attention and I find that when they're "in character" it's much easier to get them to behave nicely! Dragons are much more well-behaved than little boys ;) 

Who knew!!?

I kept the decorations pretty simple.

Toby had the idea that we should make dragons that were flying around the ceiling...and I thought "Why not?" 

I just sort of freehanded/cut out construction paper dragons and tied them to helium balloons. I thought the paper would be light enough to stay up with a few balloons, but I ended up having to use a few push pins in the ceiling because the dragons were flying a little too low ;)

I made a felt banner with a sort of "medieval" look to it... 

The cake was a lot of fun to make. I sort of made it like this one, but changed/added a few things.

It was actually pretty easy to do. A little tricky with the icing, but not too bad. I did a "crumb coat" first, and I think that helped. I used fondant for the spikes/feet/horns/fire/hat, and fruit rollups for the wings. Licorice allsorts worked well for the eyes :)

He was actually pretty cute :)

We put the candles in his mouth, to give the "breathing fire" effect. Judging by the look on Toby's face, I think it was a success! 

I made white-chocolate (well, um..I guess it was green chocolate) dipped marshmallow pops for a little treat to take home.

I tried to make them look like dragons, and ok...they really don't look like dragons...but the kids didn't care :)

I basically just jabbed a marshmallow with a stick, then dipped it in the green chocolate, shoved on a little parchment paper mini-cupcake liner,  and waited for it to cool off/harden. Then I added three little spikes, and some eyes (dipping them in the chocolate to make them stick).

I put them in little cellophane bags, and tied them with twine, and they were done!

Oh...I can't forget the dragon CAVE! 

This was one of the things that Toby really wanted to have at his dragon party.

A cave!

I was like "how on eARTh am I going to make a cave??" 

I ended up using a play tent (that I ordered off Amazon, and am really psyched to have for the summer when the boys are playing outside). I got some grey sheets/felt fabric from the thrift store and duct taped it on, then added some doors and a few random "rock" shapes (apparently dragon caves are made of rocks, I've been told). 

It was lot of fun! Toby and Finny have been playing in it a lot already, so I'm glad it's a hit!

I kept the food pretty simple too...

We had mini mac and cheese that I baked in parchment paper muffin cups and it was super easy, and turned out really well! I definitely recommend this for a kids party. You can make it ahead of time, and it just needs about 15 minutes in the oven right before you want to serve it.

I got the idea here, and sort of used my own recipe.

We also had "Dragon" sandwiches (cut with a cookie cutter) as well as greek salad bites and caprese salad bites (ideas from here and here) 

For a little activity, we had a Dragon's Egg Hunt in the backyard.

My big blue-eyed birthday boy :)

All in all, I had so much fun!

And the little dragons and princesses had fun too, I think :)

(more to come in another post....this one's just getting out of control with pictures!)

Linking up at I heart Naptime