A Calvin & Hobbes birthday!

Finn dressed up as Calvin, and Calvin as Hobbes

Calvin celebrated his upcoming birthday a little early -- with a Calvin & Hobbes party! Since there's no merchandising associated with the comic strip, we had a nicely blank slate: no licensed-character plates, toys, or shaped cake pans. Calvin wanted to dress up as Hobbes, so I made him a tiger costume; Finn became Calvin for the day with the help of a red shirt, a Sharpie, and a bit of gold hair spray.

Few of Calvin's friends are familiar with the strip, so many of the themed elements were mostly for Calvin's benefit (OK, and mine). The menu included tuna sandwiches, which Calvin used to trap Hobbes in the first place; ice cream snowballs, a nod to Calvin's wintertime fun; and of course Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs.

Food coloring + rice paper = cartoon on a cake!

When you have more than a dozen kids ages 4 to 7, they pretty much make their own fun. Finn helped pick out a good-size box to serve as Calvin's transmogrifier. We gave Calvinball a go: the antidote to organized sports,  the only rules are that players have to wear masks and you can't have the same rule twice. That proved a bit too vague for kids this age, but they had lots of random fun with the balls and croquet equipment we left outside -- very much in the spirit of Calvinball! The real Calvin hoped for some sort of a ride mimicking his namesake's wild, philosophy-oriented wagon rides, but I couldn't quite figure out how to pull that off without buying a wagon.

After the party, Calvin got right to work on his goody bag treat: a blank comic book. So glad to have his writing hand back in working order!

A drawing of Calvin and his mom -- she's all wet and mad, plus she hurt her thumb.

The celebration continues next week with special visitors -- and a trip to one of his favorite places!

The kid talked me into putting confetti poppers in the pinata -- explosive fun!