¡El Cinco de Lincoln!

Last week we had my son Lincoln's birthday party. Sometime a few months ago I was brainstorming ideas for a theme, and I had a stroke of pure genius to do a Mexican Fiesta and "El Cinco de Lincoln" was born. Nothing like a good old fashioned Mexican Fiesta to chase away those mid-winter blues.

For the invitation I was able to find a free template online. Here's the front:

The inside:

I was so excited about the theme I really has a lot of fun planning and making decorations. We had a build your own Nachos table:

My mouth is watering looking at this spread: tortilla chips, shredded chicken, cilantro-lime rice, refried bean dip, salsa con queso, shredded cheese, guacamole, black beans, pico de gallo, tomato & cucumber salsa, sour cream, black olives, and green onions. Oh, and pineapple at the back too. 

 

 Drinks, and some treats: Las frutas and Mexican Jumping Beans.

 Festive ruffled streamers, and Mexican inspired banners:

(¡Feliz Cumpleaños! : Happy Birthday!)

 These are the same fiesta fans we had hanging in our dining room all week since Lincoln's actual birthday:

Once all of our little amigos arrived we got busy with activities. First off was Pin the Tail on the Burro.

Next each of the boys got to get dressed up like little Mariachi's with their own sombreros and homemade ponchos (from a garbage bag).

 They also made little maracas out of plastic spoons, Easter eggs filled with popcorn kernels and wrapped in masking tape.

 

El Don Diego himself. I'm so happy he agreed to wear his sombrero. It was adorable. 

Showing me his finished maracas:

 We had all the mariachis line up for a photo op. Adorable I say!

Next they had a little maracas race. They each lined up on one side of the gym and had to dance and shake their way across while we played la musica de los mariachis (aka Mariachi music). When we stopped the music they had to freeze in place and if they moved they'd start again. 

Honestly it was pretty cute and hilarious so we actually let them go on for awhile, going from one side of the room to the other before we actually declared a winner. 

After the Maracas race was everyone's favorite: A Piñata! I've actually been really excited about making one for the party even before I came up with the El Cinco de Mayo/Mexican theme. This one is the first I've ever made  and if I don't say so myself it's a beauty! I was actually pretty sad about it getting smashed to pieces though. After spending more hours than I can count making it I kind-of just wanted to hang it up in our house as part of our decor!

At first I was thinking of doing the classic burro shaped piñata, but I let Lincoln choose what he wanted, and I was very relieved when he chose a much simpler star shape. Here is a step by step of how I made it.

 

The boys loved hitting it. The great thing about homemade piñatas is that they are so much stronger and takes a long time to break them open so everyone gets a lot of hits. Each time one of the points of the star would get hit off the one of the boys would claim it and wear it like a party hat. After about 3 rotations I think we were all starting to get worried that it would never break, but fortunately at about the same time I was thinking that Tony Wood hit the strings at the top and it fell to the ground and then he proceeded to smash it open.

Zach Wood wearing "the ultimate party hat"

 Here is also the first birthday cake I've ever made.Instructions can be found here.