Noah's Batman Party, Part 1

Our sweet Noah turned four on July 7th. When I asked him what he wanted for his birthday, he said he wanted a Batman cake. Easy enough! After going back and forth about whether to have a party, I decided in the 11th hour to go ahead. It was going to be a small party, but of course with our family and neighbors alone, there is no such thing as small. I am so happy that we decided to have a party because it ended up being such a wonderful day. And, I got to put my budding craft skills to work. This will be the first in a 2-part post chronicling Noah's Batman party and all the decorations, food and activities that were prepared for the event. I owe many thanks to my search engine and the blogs where I found inspiration and free files!

With only three weeks to pull it all together, I had no time to spare. Inspired by this invitation that was comic strip style, I found a website with archives of the actual 1940s "Batman & Robin" comic strip. I personalized it to include the details of the party, pasted it to black card stock and, voila! Homemade invitations.
I really wanted to go with vintage Batman & Robin, and came up with the idea of creating "Pow, Zok, Wham!" signs to post around the house.

I also really wanted a Happy Birthday banner, so I decided to make one in the same style. Strung together with black satin ribbon that I found at a discount store, I was very happy with the final product.
The rest of the decorations were kept pretty simple.
The cupcake toppers were super fun to make!
I can't take credit for this one. My artist niece-in-law, Sofia, made it.
I borrowed the super cute idea of a Superhero Academy from Designer Girl 007 and Executive Homemaker and got to work creating all the crafts, decor and signage for the back yard obstacle course. The first step in becoming a superhero is to look like one, so I made foam masks (templates from Family Fun) for all the superheros in training.

Next step, Leap Buildings in a Single Bound. The kids had a blast with this one, so I let them go several times. Third was to rescue Superman from the Batcave.
Using glow stick necklaces and a giant Superman figure that was given to Noah recently, their mission was to remove the cryptonite from Superman's neck and meet me at the next station, which was...
Mr. Freeze had frozen Batman and Robin, and the next mission was to use squirt guns to free them from the ice blocks.
Finally, the superhero wannabe's moved on to the last step in Superhero training - show off your Mighty Muscles!
With all of the steps successfully completed, we were now ready for Justice League certificates and favor bags, handed out by a very special guest.
Of course, no Batman party is complete without an appearance by the superhero himself...
I kept it simple with finger foods.
Of course some specialty Bat-food and Bat-Candy for the kiddos.
I had to frost these the day of the party...
And last but NOT least, my friend Mary whipped up this FABULOUS Bat cake. Isn't she amazing!
My first attempt at cape-crafting.
He was too overwhelmed to participate in Superhero Academy during his party...
...but he was ready for action the next day!
Stay tuned for part 2!