A Veggie Tales Birthday Party

I told you the other day that I would post another one of my favorite birthdays and I am keeping my promise!

When my son turned 3 he was really into Veggie Tales.  You know, Bob the tomato, Larry the cucumber, Junior Asparagus and Larry boy.  I figured that I would throw him a Veggie tales birthday party to celebrate him.

I started looking for party decorations and there were not that many items out there so I decided to take on the adventure of creating my own.  I could have probably done a lot more in terms of theme and decorations but for a three year old I was happy with what turned out and Corbin was thrilled - what really mattered!

Here are some of the ideas I incorporated in his birthday party:

I needed a Pinata and there definitely were not any Veggie Tales ones out there so I decided to create a Bob one.  I chose Bob because he is round!  Easier than Larry.

To make him, I paper mached a balloon and let it dry overnight.  I popped the balloon the next day and then began gluing the red, white, black and green tissue all over. I cut a hole in the top to put the candy in and the hanger that it would hang by at the party.  It turned out really cute.  The main thing I would have done differently is when I blew up the balloon initially I would have put wire all over the outside of it and then paper mached all over that.  When it came time to hit Bob the pinata he wasn't strong enough to hold up so he fell off the hanger almost immediately.  Live and Learn.  It was time consuming to make him but well worth it to have a custom made pinata.

I also made Corbin's Birthday cake and decorated him like Bob.

For this cake I used a baseball cake pan.  I had to use A LOT of red food coloring to get a true red for the icing for decorating Bob but Wilton Cake Supplies has a good coloring for that.  It is called "Red-Red." This cake was pretty straight forward. 

Since this one cake wouldn't be enough to feed all of our guests and I need to incorporate Larry somehow I decided to make Larry Twinkies.

Kids love Twinkies and what better then to add some more icing to them!  They were a hit and the most anticipated food for Corbin.  He couldn't wait to dig in.  These also worked well because they fed all the kiddos.  The Larry's took a while to decorate but again were well worth it because of the theme and making it fun for the kids. I have various piping tips from my cake decorating interest and classes in the past so they came in handy for creating the Larry Twinkies.

We had this birthday at a park so I wanted to have a party table that greeted all the guests when they got there. 

Looking back, I wish that I would have decorated the Everyday Display (the square white magnetic frame) in a Veggie Tales Theme. I kind of threw that together last minute and didn't really think about it. I made a few Bob Balloons and filled them with a bit of sand so they would sit on the table and had red treat bags for the kids to get their candy in.  I also would have given these Bob eyes to resemble veggie tales, if I did it over again.

For the games at the party we played Pin the Nose on Larry the Cucumber and Hot Bob (or Hot Potatoes - which was a bean bag Bob that I made.)

I made Larry from a big green poster board and some chalk ink for the shading on the cucumber (you can barely see it in this pic)  I made and glued eyes on him and cut a bunch of round noses for pinning (really taping.)  Whichever child got closest to the actual place Larry's nose goes won.

Here is a close up of the Bob bean bag I made.  He is made from felt, sewed together and stuffed with beans. Then I hand sewed his eyes, nose, stem and mouth on.  We tossed him around to Veggie tales music and whoever was left holding him was out of the game.  The last person left wins. My CD player wasn't working right but the kids still had fun anyway and got the idea.  It was a fun time.

I have to show you Corbin enjoying his Larry Twinkie.

And here are the three of us with Corbin before singing Happy Birthday.

I really enjoyed throwing this party for Corbin and it sure was memorable.  It goes down in my books as one of my favorite birthday parties.