Cooper’s 2nd Birthday: The Details

We had Cooper’s birthday party about a the weekend before last.  He had the best time!  I know I did :)  It was honestly an awesome day, so thank you to everyone who came and celebrated with us!

For a while, I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to do a little monster or a barnyard theme.  One day I finally realized that I couldn’t not do barnyard.  Cooper is so obsessed with farm animals right now, I knew he would love it.  And he did love it!  One thing I wasn’t expecting was for him to fully “get it” this year.  Boy, was I WRONG!!  I’ve talked before about how excited he was for his “happy”.  Every time he saw something barnyard related, he would say “happy!!”.  I made a wreath for our front door way in advance of his party, and he would constantly go into the office to get it and carry it around the house saying “happy!”.  It was so cute, and I’m glad that he had so much fun with his happy :)

I had my friend Sarah design the paper products.  She made invitations, thank you notes, and favor tags that all coordinated.  She is so talented!  Just look at the invites and thank you cards!  I am in love with them.  They are even more amazing in person.  The little animals are adorable.

 

The very first thing I did to get ready for his party was order a shirt!  Last year, I waited until the last minute and ended up making one myself.  It was fine, but I had seen this one way back, and I knew I wanted it for him.  I didn’t have them put his age on it so he can wear it whenever he wants!  I bought it from this etsy shop.

I made this sign from leftover wood scraps we had in our garage.  Lee’s co-worker let us borrow some hay from her farm :)

Fabric rag wreath.  I have made a couple of these wreaths and they are so easy!  You just cut strips of fabric and tie them on to a wire wreath frame.  I used red and cow print fabric, and an old pair of jeans to make this.  Cooper loves, loves this.  I’ve thought about putting it in his room, haha :)

   Party favors!

 

I made these moo pies as favors.  Are they not the cutest?!  I have a lot of books that show you how to make fun things out of cookies and cupcakes.  These were honestly pretty simple.  Waiting for all the frosting to dry is what took the longest!

These are the favor tags that Sarah designed for me, they were perfect!

 

Balloons and fabric bunting in the playroom!  Cooper loves balloons, so when I saw these on Oriental Trading, I knew they would be perfect!  I used a coupon for a helium tank at Hobby Lobby. and a couple of my friends came over early and blew these up for me, among many other things they did :)  It’s hard to see, but there are also some wagon wheels hanging from the ceiling.  Those were an Oriental Trading find as well.  The bunting was a last minute thing I did the night before with leftover fabric from the wreath.  For all of the banners, and anything that was hung, I used twine that we had leftover from building the fence when we moved in.  And I just used little clothespins to hang the fabric, letters, or whatever.  Super easy!

This banner is random, but I wanted something hanging from the mantle.

I bought cupcake toppers from this etsy shop, and replaced the short topper sticks with long skewers, stuck them into floral foam, and piled on raffia I got at Hob Lob.  These animals were one of my favorite things, and I’m going to find a way to put them in Cooper’s room.  I still have them out, and if he sees them, he will run over and say “happy!”  So silly.

 

Food!!  The most important part :)  I tried not to go overboard on food, because I tend to do that.  I like to eat!  I did a good job because there was almost nothing left!  I found these bandanas on Oriental Trading and pinned them all together with safety pins to form a backdrop.  It didn’t turn out exactly as I had pictured, but it was cute.

This table was mostly sweets and desserts, except for the two snack mixes in the apple buckets.  All of the apple barrels (that’s what those round, wooden buckets are called, or so I found out) and the haystacks were Hob Lob finds.  I tried to have barnyard or farm-themed names for all the food :)

We had: chicken feed (chex mix), spicy chicken feed (alabama firecrackers), fruit stand, mud puddle (brownie batter dip, which is AH-mazing!), smores (homemade marshmallows dipped in chocolate and sprinkles with graham cracker crumbs), and haystacks (rice krispy treats dipped in yellow melting wafers).  I found the cute little fruit baskets at Shop Sweet Lulu.  They are my favorite.  Apparently everything is my favorite.

This was the “main” food: vegetable patch, pigs in a blanket, pig tail pasta salad, fiesty barnyard dip (buffalo chicken dip), roasted corn stalks (bacon wrapped jalapenos), and curds and whey (cheese and crackers). FYI - I do know that curds and whey is not actually cheese and crackers, but I couldn’t think of anything else, and Little Miss Muffet wasn’t attending, so I figured I was safe.

 

So, like the moo pies, I also had these animals in my books – horses, sheep, hens, and pigs.  I wanted to make some, so I just made two of each.  They were really not too hard!  The horses gave me the most problems, but I think they turned out fine.  I found these tree slices, or whatever, at Hobby Lobby and thought they would be so fun to use to display the animals.  We stacked some scrap wood under a couple so they were at different heights (I’m telling you people, we have a lot of scrap wood!).  Oh, the fence was a random Hob Lob find as well.  It was actually 5 separate pieces, I just taped them together.  Cooper was obsessed with these animals and the cows, it was so funny.  He may have eaten 1.5 moo pies that morning to keep him quiet :)

     

Drinks!  I am obsessed with these mason jars.  We use them to drink out of all the time.  I even pack food for work in them!  They are so fun, and were perfect for the party.

 

I wasn’t sure how hot it would be outside, so I didn’t want to do much out there, but I did want to have a place for people to sit if the kids wandered out there, because we don’t have patio furniture.  So in the back you can see some benches we borrowed from my parents.  We also borrowed a tent from my brother for some extra shade.  I did cover Cooper’s little table with kraft paper and I set out crayons, stickers, play dough, and sidewalk chalk for the kids to play with.  It ended up not being too hot out, so this place saw quite a bit of action.

Okay!  I think that’s going to be it for today!  Congratulations if you actually made it all the way to the end :)  I’ll wrap it up later this week with more pictures of the birthday boy and the friends that made it a great day!