Beatles Birthday Party!

This weekend I hosted a combined birthday party for myself and my friend Mike. Both of our birthdays are actually in about a week, but we figured people would be busy with Easter stuff next weekend, so this weekend worked nicely for the party! I wanted to have a Beatles theme because Mike and I both really like them, and so do most of our friends. Lots of planning, baking, and decorating went into this party and it was all sooooo worth it! It turned out great! Here are some pictures from Saturday night. Enjoy!

Here's a picture of the Octopus's Garden Salad Bar before the food was set out. I had lots of fun decorating this table. I think the bright colors fit with the psychedelic theme of the Beatles! :)

Here's the table filled with food!

Barbecued 'Blackbird' Wings- I was pretty lazy with these and just used premade boneless chicken wings that were on sale at the store, but they were still pretty tasty according to Ben. I wasn't a huge fan, but I don't really like processed chicken so that was my biggest problem with them.

Sgt. Pepperoni Pizza (there are pepperoni on those pizzas they are just hidden beneath the cheese!) Here is my favorite pizza recipe:

http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/525/Pizza_Hut_Original_Pan_Pizza41605.shtml

This recipe always turns out delicious (if you like a thick crusted pizza!)

'Yellow Submarine' Sandwich Loaves with Mean Mr. Mustard frowning in the background haha. The sandwich loaves are just frozen bread dough filled with butter, ham, salami, cheddar and mozzarella cheese. Then I sprinkle the dough with Italian Herbs and Monterey Jack cheese.

Diggin' in

'Ginger Sling with a Pineapple Heart' Punch. This reference is kind of obscure, it comes from the song "Savoy Truffle" and I couldn't find a good recipe for a ginger sling so I made one up. This is just pineapple juice, frozen lemonade, water, ginger ale, and fresh pineapple slices.

Dessert Table!

'Cream Tangerine' shots! These are also a "Savoy Truffle" reference. I made these up too. They're just a slice of tangerine inside a shot glass filled with 1/4 shot peach schnapps and topped with homemade citrus flavored whipped cream.

Tangerines from the 'Tangerine trees' These are the same jello shots I made for the Pirate Party. They are so yummy! I doubled the batch this time. It's just 2 packets of orange jello with 1/2 cup of the water replaced with peach schnapps. They taste like sunshine.

'Marshmallow Pie' from "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" This is another made up recipe. I wanted to make something that tasted kind of like s'mores so I filled a graham cracker crust with chocolate ganache then broiled a layer of mini-marshmallows on top. In hindsight I wish I had used milk chocolate instead of semi-sweet, but that's how I always am! I prefer milk chocolate to dark/semi-sweet any day!

'Coffee Dessert (Yeah, you know it's good news!') Another "Savoy Truffle" reference because that song is just loaded with delicious sounding desserts. Another made up recipe. For this, I simply added around a 1/4 cup of super strong black coffee to the pudding mixture from the trifle recipe I posted earlier.

Chocolate Covered 'Strawberry Fields' I am beyond obsessed with these! I think they are such pretty colors!

All we (my awesome neighbor Vicky and I) did was color some almond bark green, dip the strawberries and then color coconut green for the grass! Warning: when you add food coloring to almond bark, it changes the consistency really quickly. That's why these look a bit... umm... rustic? I don't care though, the colors are pretty enough to make me forget about their imperfections!

'I heard it's your Birthday' cake and 'Savoy Truffles' (Oreo truffles) Oreo truffles recipe is as follows: Pulse 3 rows of Oreos in a blender until you get fine crumbs, mix with 1 package of cream cheese and 1 tsp vanilla. Refrigerate 30 minutes. Roll into 1 inch balls. Refrigerate 30 minutes. Dip in white chocolate.

Another view of the cake and truffles! The cake was french vanilla with raspberry preserves between the layers and cream cheese frosting. Those little rainbow sprinkles are super tiny versions of those Hershey's 'Kissables.' Here's what was inside:

Yep! A psychedelic rainbow cake! Perfect for a Beatles party if you ask me haha. This took forever to make but was so fun and worth it!

A nice big slice of rainbow cake for my wonderful cousin, Felix!

Having his cake...

...and eating it too!

That's it for the food portion of the night, but here are some of the costumes/ random fun shots of people throughout the night! :)

Elliot as Father McKenzie and Vicky as Julia, oceanchild.

Kelsey as 'the girl with kaleidoscope eyes'

Felix's girlfriend Maria as herself + Pippin as one of the 'piggies.'

Felix as himself with Merry as one of the 'piggies.'

Mike as Rocky Raccoon and Miles as Maxwell Edison (you can kind of see his silver hammer in his right hand.) Oh, also Ben making a blurry appearance, perhaps as the 'Nowhere Man.'

Me, getting laced up as 'Her Majesty/The Queen'

Applying Mike's 'Rocky Raccoon' makeup.

Ben as 'Polythene Pam' (She's so good-lookin' but she looks like a man!)

Aww.

Gennie as John Lennon! Her hair, glasses and fake mustachio were just perfect for this!

Joey as Jimmy Shaw from Metric. (Apparently they have a song about the Beatles so that makes this costume appropriate haha.)

Kelsey and Elliot posing in the kitchen haha.

Ben dancing to Beatles Rockband. I think he enjoyed wearing that dress. He seemed very confident with his body while wearing it haha.

India playing Rockband. Please note the 'celophane flowers of yellow and green, towering over [our] heads.'

Angela as someone who is 'going to a party party, yes, [she's] going to a party party!' haha and Justine as Annie from "I am Sam"

Group shots of less than half the guests at the party. I'm not sure why we didn't get any of everybody. Ben was standing on my shoulder in the first picture. Also, I made those mustachios on sticks out of black construction paper and some wooden craft stick things I had laying around. There was one of each type of Beatles' mustachios: the Harrison, the Starr, the McCartney, and the Lennon! Looks like Erik has 'the McCartney' and India has 'the Starr' in these pictures!

Thanks for reading! If I don't have pictures of you from the party and you were there, I'm really sorry! I wasn't very good at taking people pictures that night. Feel free to send me some pictures of yourself from the party and I will add them to this post.