the 'stache bash

The title of this post could have also been:
- I slept!
- Happy Birthday William
- Wait, he's a porn star?

But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? Let me back up. Yesterday, my hubby marked a big milestone in his life. He turned 40!  A friendly reminder that I did marry someone 9 years older then myself. :) Even though he is not a huge party person, I knew I had to make a semi big deal of his big day. So I secretly planned a couple big events for this weekend. After lunch on Friday, Owen and I set off for Peoria. My sister said this may have been a bit OCD to pack his clothes this way, but really I was just trying to make it easy on my mom.
I said goodbye and booked it back to Champaign. I got home a little after William who was expecting me to have Owen and the babysitter. But surprise, we were kid free all weekend.  We headed out to Desthil to use a giftcard (thanks Trish and Chrissy).  It was a popular place and we saw multiple people we knew.  I had a big, yummy burger and they even gave William a free birthday dessert.  Then, we got all crazy and went home to watch a movie and go to bed.  It was pretty amazing to get a full nights sleep.  Well, minus the getting up to pee.  While William knew we were going to do something on Saturday, he didn't know what.  I admit to putting him to work cleaning and setting up tables.  Little did he know a month ago, I sent out these babies to invite some friends to his 'stache bash (ordered from here).

Although I should have spent the day enjoying being childless, I have this slight problem about going overboard with parties. So I spent most of Saturday getting ready for our guests. I kicked William out for a few hours so I could at least put up a few decorations as a surprise.  Here's a little breakdown of what the party included.  Jenna would shake her head at my pictures.  It was dark with my bad camera and of course, I missed several important things.  

Decor

I stuck with red, black, and white as our color themes.  Of course, I didn't get a picture of the main table once it had food on it.  But here was the banner that went above it.  Ignore the ugly curtains.  My mom and I are in process of making new ones!  Above the fireplace, I made a banner of mustache names such at lip spinach, cookie duster, and soup strainer and accompanying pictures.  There's a simple printable version here.

The main table had cupcake trays that I made by covering cardboard with ribbon and scrapbook paper and placing them on top of a covered soup can.  Can you say free? :)  The table also help the mustaches on sticks, stick on mustaches, and little favors of Wolly Willys.  Remember these from when we were little?  

I made a "wet your whiskers" sign for the drink counter.

Of course, we had to have some pictures of the adorable birthday boy.

And the balloons sporting their mustaches:

Food
I kept the menu pretty simple with a mexican dip, fruit, veggies, and lots of drinks.  A few highlights were the chocolate lollipops.  I ordered molds for chocolate and got a great bag of chocolate from Hobby Lobby (hello 40% coupon).  These took a few days to make since I only had 4 slots in the mold.  But they were yummy!

The drink hit of the night was my sangria. I had never made this before, but it was great!  It does have to be made a day ahead of time to all the flavors can mix.

We of course had to have red velvet cupcakes which are William's favorite.

And last, mustache cookies.  I made sugar cookies and cut them out as circles.  Then I just cut the circles into a ying-yang shape and then put the 2 halfs together to make a mustache shape.

Games
So what's a party without some good old fashioned games?  Well, that's what I thought at least, but now I'm wondering if I should have spared myself the embarrassment. :)  The first game was simple and had no problems.  Pin the Mustache on Burt Reynolds and I found the whole printable game here.  4 of the guys got really into it and Josh took home the prize!

And then there was the Name that 'Stache game.  I got the idea here.  I took pictures from a collection of famous mustaches here and had people guess who the people were by just seeing their mustaches.  While some people were working hard on trying to figure it out, someone came up and asked if I had put a porn star on the game.  Aghast, I said of course not!  But then I realized that there was one person that I didn't really know that I had put on there.  He had a great mustache, so I thought someone would know who he was.  Well, most everyone did.  And obviously, I lead a sheltered life.  Note to anyone who makes this game: don't put Ron Jeremy on there.  *insert lots of blushing*

these ladies worked together to win the game

The winners of the games took home a bouquet of suckers and Walmart giftcards.

The People and 'Staches (more pictures on facebook)

the birthday boy, me (and Ellie)

nice eyebrows Jeff

Becca and Josh

Mike and Amy

Mags looking good with a stache

Mike and Julie

Stephanie and Mike

And that's a wrap.  We went and picked up Owen today in Peoria and stayed for church.  He had an awesome weekend with my parents and I hope William had a great time being celebrated.  I love you sweetie.  Happy 40th Birthday!