MAX'S COW PARTY!

My little baby turned 2!! Eek! His favorite thing in the whole wide world (besides his big bro) are COWS. He has an entire backpack full of cow figurines that attend all of our outings. With every person he meets, he tells them about cows or the one time he pet a cow or cows say moo... I could go on. There was no other choice but to make him a cute little cow party and celebrate with family!

Cow PBJ's, farm veggies, and cow cheese! I just used a cow cookie cutter to cut out the bread and black food dye for the spots. Just dab a corner of a paper towel in the food dye and dot on the bread.

 Milk bar anyone? Vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry.

 This is what I call a deconstructed cow cake... easy peasy. I used pink frosting and pink jelly beans for the udder :)
I cut out squiggles of black paper for the table decoration.

I had some leftover tattoo favors from Max's little preschool buddies that I used as table decoration. Moooo Max is 2! We do custom packaging like this in our Etsy shop!

 Our party hat DIY is HERE. Just decorate with black squiggly shapes and a pink "2".

 Max's "aunt" Ashley got him this bouncy cow for his birthday! He obviously LOVED it!

I made Max his tee shirt with the tattoo image printed on iron-on transfer paper.

Sources - click below:

Cow balloon 

Letter balloons by Northstar Balloons

Plates

Napkins

Candle

Hats - DIY

- L

ARI'S 4TH BIRTHDAY - PIZZA PARTY!

Ari turned 4 yesterday! I cannot believe I have a four-year-old. What?! After Max's 1st birthday party last month (HERE) I was pretty spent, so it was music to my ears when Ari declared he didn't want a party! Background... he's not too into other kids his age and much prefers adults. We're working on it at preschool and with play dates, but honestly it was his birthday, so he should get to do what he wants, right? Ari's request was going to his fav pizza place, Mellow Mushroom, with just the family. So that's what we did!

I kept decoration to the bare minimum (to my standards) and just made these little pizza party hats, a pizza cake, and pizza tattoos. 

Pizza Party tattoos in our Etsy shop HERE

For the pizza cake, I just used sour straws and chocolate cheerios for the "pizza toppings". I tinted frosting red for the middle layer and yellow for the top. You guys... I totally attempted a brown crust out of frosting and failed miserably. Scraped it off and stuck with a clean yellow top! 

I thought these pizza hats turned out pretty well and were super simple! For the tutorial and more DIY party hat ideas, click HERE.

Here's my birthday boy checking out his cake sans pants.

That's a wrap! Now to move into our new home NEXT WEEK.... oy.

-L

Ari's Modern Animal Themed 2nd Birthday Party HERE, HERE, and HERE.

FINN'S CONSTRUCTION PARTY

There's nothing we love more than throwing a party, and this time we were so excited to design a construction-themed party for sweet Finn's second birthday. He (like so many little dudes) is obsessed with diggers and trucks, so naturally, his mom came up with a construction theme. We wanted to keep the look simple and modern like we do for our own parties, so we took out orange and kept the main colors kraft, black, and yellow.

To direct guests into the house, we set up a detour sign and lined the walkway with cones HERE. We bought a raw wood saw horse at Home Depot and painted the legs in black for that "dipped" look.

 Here's the birthday boy, Finn! Isn't he gorgeous? 

FOOD & DRINKS:

Because we peer pressured Finn's parents to serve their guests alcohol at their kid's party like WE do... 

a "Site Managers Only" sign was needed!

 The "road" backdrop in all of these shots is just black wrapping paper with yellow card stock lines stuck on with double stick tape.

FAVORS:

Teeny toy trucks HERE.

 We found these goofy tool tattoos at Hobby Lobby! A little stereotypical... but fun, right? 

Teeny treat bags HERE.

 Toddler crack bubbles from the dollar store.

Construction hats HERE.

Dirt Pops AKA jumbo marshmallows dipped in white chocolate candy melts, rolled in crushed graham crackers. SO GOOD you guys. You can display these bad boys in extra graham cracker crumbs.

Tip: dip the lollipop sticks in the candy melts FIRST, push that into the marshmallow and let dry- this will secure the marshmallow to the stick. Then you can dip the marshmallows in candy melts, shake off extra chocolate, and roll in the crumbs. You can keep these frozen for a week or so before the event.

We packaged the goodies up in THESE boxes and personalized them for each child.

FUN & GAMES:

 We made the photo booth by simply painting a flattened cardboard box!

 Photo booth props: We hot glued the paper props we made to dowels, vest HERE, hats HERE.

 Finn's big sis, Annie.

Awwww yeah, every little boy's fantasy, every parent's nightmare. Finn's parents are troopers! 

 The kids ate lunch picnic-style on tarps because... duh.

Happy Birthday, Finn! We had so much fun dreaming up your construction party and hope you got your fill of digging, dirt, and sweet treats!