For my son’s 7th birthday this year, we decided to book at the nearest Cineplex Theater and watch the Lego Batman Movie with his friends. With reserved theater seating, a private party room and the help of a party host, Cineplex’s Popcorn Parties made things incredibly easy to celebrate my son’s big day.
When our guests first arrived at the theater, we had the party room available to gather in and have everyone drop off their coats and gifts. From there, our party host took all the kids to go pick out their drinks and get their kids popcorn trays from the concession before being escorted to our reserved row of seats in the theater.
While my husband was helping the kids get settled into the theater, I took a few moments to set out the cake and decorations I had brought along. Even though the party room came decorated and supplied with cups and plates, I couldn’t resist bringing in a few of my own decorations and party supplies to make it special for my birthday boy.
Some quick and easy tabletop decorations I DIY’d were a cityscape backdrop cut from black foamcore and a recycled plastic container turned Batman head using the mask from my son’s last Halloween costume. I also dove into our endless supply of Lego to build a number 7 centerpiece and prepared a few printable signs to put into plastic frames we already owned.
Once the movie was finished, we were escorted back to the party room. There was a bit of a wait for pizza, so I was happy to have the Batman Bingo game I shared in this other post. I decided to use Rocket’s candies as the markers for the cards which excited the kids and allowed us to reuse the cards for a few rounds.
Since the popcorn trays and pizza afterwards was included as part of the party package, the only food detail I was left with to take care of was the birthday cake. I have made all of Camden’s past birthday cakes and this year was no exception.
I tried a recipe for mouldable buttercream to create the belt and building details on the cakes, but found it a bit tricky to work with. The cake wasn’t quite as clean and polished as I would have liked, but it did come out pretty close to what I had pictured in my mind once I got the Lego minifigures and number 7 candle on it. Even if it didn’t look perfect, the lemon and chocolate layers both tasted great!
For the favors, I ordered some great drawstring burlap bags and drew a large $ sign on them with a permanent marker so they’d look like those you’d see the villain’s stealing in cartoons and comic books. The loot that filled each bag included a Lego Batman Movie minifigure, a “dynamite” roll of Lifesavers candy, chocolate coins, and mini Kit Kat bars that were wrapped to look like Lego money. If you like the sticks of dynamite, head over to Moms and Munchkins for my FREE printable labels.
I was happy with how everything turned out, but I think my favorite party detail was the Batman minifigure cards we made and attached to each loot bag. We discovered the Lego Batman Movie Super SigFig Creator website and, after playing around on it for a bit, my son came up with the idea to create one based off each of his guests.
Camden was excited to take the task upon himself and diligently worked to select all the details needed to build each of his friends into their own Lego superhero or villain. I then helped print the files and cut out the finished cards.
I always love to add a personalized touch to the party and I was so proud my son came up with the idea on his own and worked hard to execute it. As my kids get older, I am really enjoying involving them more with the party planning and seeing what creative ideas they can come up with.
This ended up being one of the least stressful parties I have hosted for my kids. My son had a hard time narrowing down his guest list and I was a bit worried about how we would handle a dozen kids at the theater. Luckily our party host was incredibly helpful and made the transitions between the theater and party room very easy. Some of the kids did get a bit restless towards the end of the movie, but overall it was incredibly calm and, as a bonus, I actually got to sit back with my feet up for a large portion of the 3 hours to watch the movie.
My son had a great birthday and overall I was very happy with our decision to book the Popcorn Party. My only real complaint was the additional $3 per kid charge we ended up paying to see the movie in the AVX theater since there was not a regular theater version available. I specifically chose the normal movie option over 3D at booking to keep costs down and was a bit frustrated to find out the week before the party that we had no options but to pay the extra costs. I will just keep this in mind if looking to book a party for a very newly released movie in the future.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAMDEN!
*All opinions expressed in this post are my own.
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