One year ago I gave birth across the room from a former workmate whose family hails from Argentina. I call her Mrs. Argentina. I imagine we’ll have at least one joint birthday party together, but for this year I had a relatively simple barbeque, and she put together what I would call a pin-worthy party. Here’s what she pulled together:

  • handmade pennant banners from superhero scrapbook paper
  • homemade superhero cupcakes
  • homemade fondant batman smash cake
  • hand-painted superhero piggy banks
  • fake chalkboard stat board
  • paper table runners and crayon centerpieces
  • pull string pinata filled with toddler-friendly items
  • inflatable pool filled with balloons
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Mrs. Argentina’s sister made the cupcakes and fondant smash cake. The chocolate cupcakes were a-ma-zing. I am a huge chocolate cake fan, but I have never been keen on cupcakes because they are usually dry and overly sweet. These, however, were moist and delicious, like a ….cake! She said it was just a pinterest recipe from Ina Garten. If you look at all the dialogue on the page, they discuss different ways to prevent sinking by changing temperatures or adjusting the baking soda/baking powder, but she made it just like it was there and they were amazing. I would have never expected it, but it seems like the very best chocolate cake recipes do involve coffee, like Mrs. Oatmeal’s, and Mrs. Stroller’s. I am normally not a buttercream frosting kind of gal, it’s usually too sweet for me, but this buttercream rivaled whipping cream. Here’s her recipe for the chocolate frosting:

It’s equal amounts of sifted powdered sugar and unsalted butter, and then the vanilla was just added as needed (taste as you go, I’d say about 1/4 cup for every pound) and then I added Hershey’s cocoa powder. That was kinda also added as I went.

I helped out in making just a few of the superhero pigs. She bought a tonne of little pigs at the Dollar Tree and they had a bit of a shiny painted finish. We tried sharpies and acrylic paint. There are certainly options to buy ceramic markers that usually need to be baked on (hello invisible baking fumes, protect your birds and babies), but we found the easiest was was to spray paint a base coat of pink, and then paint with acrylics on top. To go the extra mile, she finished them off with a mod podge clear coat, but you could also spray paint a glossy clear coat. There are some pretty amazing options at etsy if you’re not feeling crafty enough, like this TMNT, spider pig, Donatello, Wolverine, Iron man, Superman, Batman, Venom, Wonderwoman, Thor.

The obligatory fake chalkboard first year stats. She used Crayola Dry Erase Crayons that she had on hand.

She made pennants with superhero scrapbook paper and made this Seattle skyline backdrop with white paint and a large sheet of fabric. She had a basket of props to use photobooth style.

She got ikea rolls of paper and lined the centers of the tables and left out cups of crayons. Sometimes the simplest ideas turn out the best!

She made a pull string pinata from an old granola bar box and comic strips. I think this blog has a good visual explanation of how to assemble the strings so the dummy strings just pull out. In the end I think the strings were adhered with tape and the “winning string” didn’t let the loot loose, so an older child was excited to have at it. I love her selection of toddler-appropriate items – superhero figurines and facecloths, raisins, and bubbles.


The balloons were a cheaper alternative to buying several hundred ball pit balls (I would say a regular kiddie pool would need at least 600 to have some significant depth and not looks sparse), and a safer alternative to having the pool filled with water. A word of caution about the balloons – I wouldn’t call it a particularly windy day, but the balloons would fly out and pop on the grass and leave choking hazards all over the yard.


Happy birthday, Luca and Winter!