Cars themed birthday

It was birthday time for my friend Melanie's little boy; and what boy wouldn't love a Cars themed birthday bash?! Melanie went all out with the food, decor, and game, and I got to help out on the Cars cupcakes.

She had made yummy peanut butter bars that looked like stop lights, chocolate covered pretzels for dip sticks, and chocolate covered oreos for spare tires. She even found cars themed juice boxes for the kids and had race flag patterned bottle water for the adults. I just about died when I saw the party favor bags she made that looked like Lightning McQueen and Mater. They were darling! (oh wait, boy's party--I don't know if I'm allowed to use the word "darling." Maybe I should say they were rockin'--I don't know, I don't have boys).

Melanie borrowed my 4 tiered cupcake platter and decorated it with construction paper to resemble race tracks. So creative and fun.

I'm so glad I got to help her with the cupcakes. These were so fun to make. I molded Lightning McQueens, Maters, and Chicks out of modeling chocolate then stuck them on top of cupcakes iced in red, yellow, or blue almond buttercream.

What made it even better was that Melanie did all the baking, so all I had to do was make the icing and decorate--by far my favorite part. I've always said I would love to have someone do all the baking and someone else do all the cleaning up, so I can just do all the decorating. She made it so easy for me. Thanks, Mel! Don't you love the cupcake liners she used? The were perfect for the cars theme.

We had a yummy lunch together with our friends and enjoyed all the socializing.

Cupcake time--here is the birthday boy blowing out his candles.

These two are sure enjoying eating their cupcakes. My little one took the "no hands" approach to eating.

Melanie and her husband Nephi made this awesome Lightning McQueen pinata out of cardboard boxes and paper maiche. It looked amazing. The kids had a blast trying to break it open and finally resulted to all jumping on it to retrieve the candy and toys.

The goody bags came in handy when the pinata was opened, and the kids started filling them up.

Here are all the kids that came. What a fun group!

Happy Birthday Andersen. Glad we could be apart of your special day!