A Little Monkey Business: turtle power!

This was Andrew's invitation I made for his party

Andrew is really into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles right now. He loves the new show that started this fall on Nickelodeon (our DVR is exploding with episodes and he counts down every day all week until the new one comes out!) He wanted a Ninja Turtle birthday party, and so I took the theme and went with it. But then.... I realized there are NO birthday party supplies anywhere! And all the old supplies are super rare, hard to find and expensive! I figure the show is too new for them to have birthday stuff.

So, I had to get creative and make up a lot of my own stuff! These are buildings made from boxes to look like a city. I put his Ninja turtle figures around it for decoration. He loved it! And he still has this sitting out and plays with it all the time!

Balloons were hard to find too, so I ordered one of the older Ninja Turtles and then went with a pizza slice (since the turtles love pizza!) and then added masks the color of each turtle on green balloons. Andrew loved it!

Headbands (cut from fleece so they tie easier) in the colors of the turtles and Ooze so they could turn into a turtle! When guests arrived they had to crawl through a "sewer" (play crawl tunnel), then touch the ooze, then they got a headband and became a Ninja turtle!

Close up of the balloons. I tied them to a photo of Andrew taken at the Mall of America with his favorite turtle Donatello.

I picked up these cute little pizza boxes at Papa Johns (6.5" size) and made the sticker labels for the top and sides.

The top says "Caution: Sweet treat"

Inside were delicious sugar cookies made to look like pizzas as a party favor for the guests to take home. These were a hit!

I found little gummy pizzas too- the kids loved these!

The beautiful cake was made by a special friend- Charlyn Mason, who works with my mom and has followed Andrew's story from Day one and has always been so supportive of our family. So it was very special for her to make this cake for Andrew- he was so thrilled when he saw it! The top is a pizza cookie.

Andrew was so proud of his cake!

The best part for me was finding the perfect place to have a ninja party- a martial arts studio!

I had called several local places, and was giving up when I got a promising answer from someone at Martial Arts America. Their studio is right in town and they had a karate instructor and a young helper come and do a 45 minute lesson for the kids, which they loved!

He taught them several "ninja" moves and kicks.

This added so much to the party! Andrew loved it and so did the kids. Andrew was so proud the whole day.

I love these pictures of him and his little friends!

Pretty good kicks!

They set up an obstacle course so the kids crawled through the "sewer" again...

Then jumped over something and then ran to kick the punching bag

Then they demonstrated how to break a board, which I wasn't sure would go over very well! I didn't know if the kids would be strong enough, but I was so surprised several of them got it on the first try! All 3 girls at the party got it on the first try, which was so cute! They were all so excited. And they got to keep their boards.

Andrew has been little since he was born. Not super strong and he just could not get it to break! Everyone was waiting with anticipation as he kept trying and trying. I wanted him to break it so badly, especially since it was his birthday party! He never gave up! They decided to have him try to break it with his foot...

After a couple tries he kicked that board right through!

This is my favorite picture of the day- his face after he broke it, and everyone clapping and cheering for him in the background. He was SO PROUD!

All of Andrew's favorite little people, all in one place. I love this picture.

After the lesson we went back and had some pizza! The turtles needed to get some more turtle power!!

They had a little room next to the studio where we ate, it worked out perfectly!

Silly daddy! You can't see his shirt, but it's got Ninja Turtles on it!

After pizza he opened his presents.

He got a lot of nice things, including some more Ninja Turtles, Skylanders and dinosaurs!

I loved how he could read who the cards were from!

This is his little friend Mya- they have known each other since he started day care when they were 2. She now goes to his school (in a different class) but I love how she talks to him like a little mother! Ha!