Race Day Birthday Party

   Weeks and weeks ago we had Caleb's 11th birthday party! I wasn't able to post about it sooner because of being busy having family over, and planning for our trip, but I still want to share about it. He wanted a Lightening McQueen (From Disney's Cars movies) theme, but he happily agreed to just "race cars", with a touch of "Cars" (the movie) here and there..  

  It was a lot of work in some ways, and fairly simple in other ways. For instance, making the cakes (which I'll share about later this week) took hours to put together, but really, that can be expected. Having activities for the kids to do stressed me out a little more than usual this year though. In years past we've rented a big bouncy castle/waterslide thingy. But Caleb passed the age and weight restrictions on it this year, so we didn't get one. That was the activity we usually "planned" on for his parties! So, after some Googling and Pinterest hunting, we came up with a simple plan for a car race using cars the kids would decorate themselves

The Race Track

   So, I had seen a few different ideas on Pinterest about making a race track, and I had settled on an idea where you cut a pool noodle in half lengthwise and use that, but I could not find any pool noodles that had a big enough hole through the centre to make that work! Plan B was to root though my barn loft, get some wood that might work, and make my own race track! That plan worked out, and it was really very simple to do. 
   I used a (roughly) 8ft x 2 ft piece of chip board, and some 1x1inch strips to make the track. I used 1 1/2inch screws to attach the strips to the chip board, then I simply used a saw to trim the edges. After that I spray painted the track black, that took about 2 coats.  
    To set up the track, I simply stood it in an a-frame ladder, and that was it!

The Cars

    We bought the cars through a website called "Open A Party". I choose that website for this party because they had the most race car themed supplies. You can find the cars by clicking here.
   These DIY race cars were affordable ($14.99 for 30 cars), and were easy for the kids to colour using permanent markers. 

   We simply put the cars into a bowl, had a bunch of permanent markers, and let the kids colour! 
   Then my husband took care of the racing part, working it out "round robin" style, so that each child raced against each other, and from each race the winner became part of the final races and so-on until we had a winner!  

The Food

   We decided on the super tasty, and extremely unhealthy option of serving race-track food for the party! 
   We had hamburgers (regular and sliders), Pogos (regular and minis), nachos and cheese, and also veggies and dip. There was also little boxes of popcorn for the kids to munch on while they decorated their cars and during the races. 
   I bought a huge can o' nacho cheese sauce from our grocery store that has a bulk section, and the big bag of nachos from there too. I dumped the can of cheese into my slow-cooker, and it was good-to-go. Everything else was just regular grocery items, though hunting down mini Pogos proved harder than I wanted it to be! I finally found them at FreshCo. in Belleville. 
   I bought the plates, cups, etc. from Open A Party. The popcorn boxes were on clearance for $0.59 for a 6 pack! Woot woot! The plates can be found here, and the cups here. I liked the variety I found on Open A Party, but their search engine/names of products is fussy, so I had to look up a variety of names to find everything they had to offer under this theme. Just an FYI. 
   I had water bottle labels made from Zazzle, and they turned out really well. This is a detail that wasn't necessarily important, but Caleb really liked them, and that was the point! The girls helped me attach the labels to the water bottles.
   Oh, and I got the nacho and cheese "trays" from a super-duper nice vendor at the Tweed Fair! I had been looking for those trays that divide the nachos from the cheese, but couldn't find them (except online in packs of 500 or more!). Anyway, I just asked a vendor if he would be willing to sell me 30-40 trays, and he happily obliged! 

Dessert

   I'll show in detail how I made the cakes later this week, but for now, I shall share some photos! We also had fruit with dessert. I used this website, as the inspiration for the watermelon bowl with the race car. I didn't use any special tools though, just a regular knife to cut it out, and a spoon to scrape/etch in the details. I just looked up different race car images and decided on the one I wanted to use, then I printed off images of tires and attached those...to the wrong spots. See that? I put the bigger tire on the back of the car, and the smaller on the front. Oops. 

The Treat Bags

   I bought the bags (I can't find them on the website anymore?), gummy car candies, and suckers & labels from Open a Party. I added some extra candy too. The girls helped attach the labels to the suckers. They were great helpers! 

   
    I also bought some shirts from our local thrift store, and used a permanent marker to make them into specific shirts: The owner, the crew chief, and a race car driver.. I wanted to make pit crew shirts for the girls too, but couldn't find any red shirts at the thrift store, so yup,  that was that! 

   And that was Caleb's party! The weather was nice, the kids had fun, and it all went really well! The best part was how happy Caleb was. He was pooped (x100000) by the end of the day, but he was happy! I love that kid!