UP Birthday Adventure

It is unofficially the last day of summer! Time to pull out the Fall decorations and pumpkin candles around here. It's also time for me to start planning a certain little guy's birthday party. I'm doing a bit of a throwback today, because around this time last year he decided he wanted an UP party for his birthday. No one who knows him was the least bit surprised. Since the age of three, our son has dressed up as Carl Fredricksen on a regular, almost daily, basis. A sport coat, bow tie, glasses and Ellie badge have been staples in his wardrobe no matter the occasion or weather.  Heading to Target with Mom? Glasses. 102 degrees out? Sport coat. Bedtime? Sorry, kiddo- the bow tie has to come off at least. I am not exaggerating when I tell you this: over this three year time frame, you were less likely to see him in regular clothes than in Mr.Fredricksen clothes. 

Here he is as Carl at three, four & five.

I put his invitations together by printing an UP-themed birthday saying along with the party details on white card stock, leaving some space on the left. I printed the house and balloons, cut and attached them in the space with adhesive foam dots to give some dimension to the card. I added a small piece of baker's twine for the balloon strings and finished by backing the entire card with turquoise card stock to give the border a little color.

He isn't very picky when it comes to party details but he had to make sure, above all else, that we would have the UP house somewhere in his party. I thought it would make such a great centerpiece on the table so I scoured the internet to find the perfect one. I quickly learned there was no such thing available to purchase and that we would be making it ourselves. I found a wooden dollhouse at our local craft store that looked similar to the one in the movie. I thought it would be so fun to put together and paint! I was wrong. So very wrong.

There were approximately 2,474,678,926 pieces to pop out and put together. When that nightmare was over, I still had to paint the thing. Every teeny, tiny little detail. After I finished in the wee small hours of the morning, I genuinely wanted to toss it to the floor and put my foot directly through the roof. Instead, I went to bed just hoping it wouldn't haunt my dreams. 

But the next morning, our sweet boy was so excited at the sight of it he was jumping up and down screaming "it looks just like it!" And THAT is why I do this. Despite it being the most tedious part of the party prep, it was the piece he liked the most. And it ended up looking pretty cute on the table with the balloons tied on top!

We had some fun snacks set out that we tied in with the UP theme, like Wilderness Explorer Trail Mix, Russell's S'Mores, Kevin's Chocolates and Dug's Dirt Cups. We also had Charles Muntz's Chips and Dip, Mr. Fredricksen's Fresh Fruit and Ellie's Turkey Roll "Ups." I made simple food cards with each of the characters to set next to the coordinating snack. You'll probably notice, I took the super easy way out with most of the menu. Especially the dirt cups. I planned to make homemade pudding and prepare individual cups with an UP embellishment but I ran out of time and it just didn't happen. Instead, I sprinkled Oreo crumbs and stuck gummy worms right into single-serving pudding cups. And you know what? It worked out fine.

The Disney Family website has a 3D Carl printable so we put him together to set next to the house. They have a Russell printable too, but he ended up playing hard with the kids the day before and was accidentally flattened. Whoops. Sorry you couldn't make it to the party, Russell.

I hung a banner made from vintage-style UP posters I printed from here and here. I also framed a picture of the house with balloons to put on the back buffet near the cake.

As for the cake itself, I made a small round and iced it in white. I keep cakes pretty simple since I am no expert when it comes to decorating. I added multicolored sprinkles to the top and a cake pop rolled in the sprinkles to look like the famous bunch of balloons.

We didn't have any planned activities for this party because I figured boys this age would rather be running around doing their own thing than any organized games. We set up an "UP"  bouncy house in the backyard and that's where they stayed for most of the afternoon!

When it comes to favors, I like to try to find something fun the kids will actually play with or use rather than a bunch of cheap candy and breakable toys. Since we already had a ton of Wilderness Explorer trail mix on hand, I scooped some into cellophane treat bags and stapled a piece of yellow card stock embellished with the Wilderness Explorer logo.


I found an UP Adventure Book on the Family Disney website, which the kids can fill out based on their real-life adventures! There are badges that go along with it which I printed on sticky-backed paper so they would be able to just peel and stick them to the pages of their book. I knew we would have to incorporate the Ellie badge too and remembered seeing this great tutorial from A Crafty Chick. They were so much fun to make and turned out really cute.

I loved the brown paper bag favors she made with the Wilderness Explorer logo too so I made our own version using a print out of the WE logo and strips of colored card stock. I made the tags which had the saying "Thanks for the adventure" with the same picture of the house and balloons to match his invitations. I attached them to the bag handles with some jute twine and they were finished!

It was a special day for our little explorer and a memorable party for all of us. As I looked back it made me realize how quickly he is drifting from his Carl Fredricksen days. Way too quickly for me. As for this year, so far he has asked to have Lego Star Wars, Lego Minecraft, and Lego Harry Potter party themes. I see where this is going. You win, Lego. You always do.