Birthday Party Prep

So tomorrow is my son's birthday party and I am speedily trying to get ready. Since my last post on the birthday party preparations, I have had to change the theme from Toy Story to the Disney Cars movie. When I went out sourcing decorations I couldn't find any Toy Story ones locally. I even checked online but with a restricted budget I did not want to waste $25 dollars on shipping. So since the dollar store near me had  Disney's Cars decorations {My son also loves this movie. I think we have watched it every day this week. Don't judge! It has been crazy hot & humid here for days and my son is on this medication that makes him photosensitive. Thank goodness he only has to take the medication for a week. Little boys love to be outside.}

As my plan of attack,  I am trying to check off my to do list each day so the day of I am not running around like a chicken with my head cut off.  Almost every day this week, I have running around picking up things we need for the party. So on Tuesday, I got the decorations from a dollar store. I got the usual items like table cloth, paper plates, napkins, and loot bags. Super excited to make the loot bags and play lucky napkin & lucky plate. I was shocked to find out my husband had never played it at any parties growing up. On Wednesday, I picked up so more prizes for the lucky games and pin the tail on the donkey. Thursday was a day to pick up snacks and ingredients we need to make the cookies, cupcakes, and dip sticks {you'll see what I mean in the pictures}. Friday, this morning, has been about making the cookies, dip sticks, cupcakes and icing, and then this afternoon will be cleaning and tiding up. Then, tomorrow will be all about assembling and styling our yard for the big event, making the loot makes, and frosting the cupcakes.

Here's a little more detail of today's prep.

For the Rice Krispie Cookies,

I followed the classic recipe from Kellogg's Rice Krispies website.  

I wanted them to be thin so I could use a cookie cutter to cut them into shapes so I put them into a greased cookie sheet with sides. Flatten them out and put them into the fridge to set.

After a couple of hours, I flipped out my sheet of rice krispies out onto a cutting board and greased up my elephant cookie cutter and began to cut them out. {You may be wondering why an elephant at a cars party because I do not own a car cookie cutter and was trying to stay on a small budget.}

TIP: The secret to working with such a sticky cookie is to use butter or margarine so that everything comes out easily. They turned out great.

While I was searching for inspiration for the Cars party, I saw on pinterest someone had made dip sticks, which were chocolate dipped pretzels made to look like an oil dip stick from a car. I thought it was super cute and thought that I should make them for my son's party. It was super easy. I bought pretzel rods. I couldn't find the tall ones so I used short ones that were honey flavoured.  I thought would work even better because most of guests at the party are little kids they would be the perfect size.

To make Dip Sticks,

I melted half a bag each of milk chocolate chips and dark chocolate chips in a glass bowl in the         microwave. {This made them my favourite sweetness level but it's up to you whether you do them all dark or all milk.} I dipped one end of the pretzel into the chocolate, let the excess drip off and put some sprinkles on. I laid them down on a Silpat lined (wax paper works well too) baking sheet and put them in the fridge to set. Ta-da you now have dip sticks.

As for the cupcakes, they are next on my list to make. I figured I would give you a sneak peek before the end of the day. 

Can't wait to show you the rest of the party!