Mario Party -9yr- Musical Mario Chairs

My son loves Nintendo, especially Mario, so for my son's 9th birthday party we had a Mario themed Birthday party.  

I found some Mario desktop wallpaper on nintendo's website which I used to make invitations. On the front with the picture it said It's a Mario Party and Josh is turning 9 won't you join us and have a good time?". On the back was a map to out place as well as all the party info.  

It was an outdoor party so for decorations I hung blue plastic tablecloths along the fence and placed cutouts of Mario goombahs coin blocks and hills that I drew on poster board. I also covered square cardboard boxes I got at Costco with brown postal paper and drew lines to look like brick and coin blocks. I stacked them in different areas in the backyard and hung some from the eaves.  

I was able to download a lot of the music from the games which I copied to CD and had playing in the background. When the kids arrived I gave them each a fake mustache (I got them at OTC) and had them pose in a cutout I painted of Mario holding a mushroom. This was easy to do. I just enlarged a picture of Mario with my projector and traced it on a large piece of cardboard. I then cutout the face area and taped it to a couple of pieces of wood so it would stand up. The kids looked so cute!  I also gave them red visors with the letter M painted on it (like Mario's hat) which was really handy since it was so sunny outside.  

After all the kids had arrived we played a balloon pop game. The day before I stuck gold plastic coins or pictures of goombas and other villians in balloons and inflated them with my air compressor. The kids had SO much fun popping the balloons! The kid with the most coins won a little Mario McDonalds toy that I bought on Ebay.  

Our next game was Mario Party musical "chairs". Instead of chairs we put a picture of each character on a piece of construction paper and put them on the ground in a circle. We would have each kid go around the "spaces" while the music was playing. When we paused the music they would have to jump on the nearest space. We would then pull a character from a hat and whomever was on that space was out of the game but would be the 'MC' for the next round.  

Next we let the kids decorate their own Mario suncatchers that I also found on Ebay. We put a piece of masking tape on the back that we wrote each kids name on so we could tell them apart when the paint dried.  

Finally it was time for the pinata. I got a plain square pinata covered it in yellow crepe paper and decorated it to look like a coin box. Inside were chocolate 'gold' coins candy mushrooms gummy race cars(Mario kart) and candy dino eggs(Yoshi). 

After the pinata each child was given their gift box to put all their treats in. I found small yellow gift boxes at the craft store (I think they were to put coffee cups in) which I also decorated to look like coin boxes. I also tossed in a Mario McDonalds toy another fake mustache and some Nintendo stickers.   We then took a break for pizza chips and fruit drinks.  

For the cake I covered a sheet cake in green icing and put a Mario figurine on top. To make it look like a scene from the game I 'glued' some graham crackers to a piece of cardboard and painted it with blue frosting. I then added mini marshmallows for clouds mini chocolate bars for blocks a gummy mushroom and premade cake letters that said "Joshua  009" like the score keeper on the game. When it was time to serve I propped up the "background" and added some star candles.  

After cake we opened the gifts and the kids got to take turns playing Mario Party 5 on two of the Gamecubes or Super Mario Brothers on the NES that we had set up around the house.   By the time the parents came to pick up the kids I was able to print up the kids pictures with the caption "You are the Party Star" and "Thanks for coming". 

The parents were thrilled with the photos and the kids loved their goody boxes. Apparently it was all they would talk about at school the next week!"