Looking back... Farmer Jake's Barnyard Party!

Our son Jake turned two back in May.  Because he loves animals, his birthday party theme was a Backyard Barnyard Party.  It is one of my favorite parties because of all of fun little details, so I thought I'd share some of those details here on my new blog! This E-I-E-I-O sign greeted our guests at the front door. Our front entry way {along with a couple of accent tables in our house} were decorated with farm decor and adorable farm pictures of our birthday boy! Our loooooong counter in our kitchen serves as the best party/food serving area ever! It has three windows above the counter, perfect for making a banner in three sections, one to hang above each window. Here is the "Jake" section of the "Happy Birthday Jake!" banner. I had fun with my new Cricut cutting out little farm animal accents for the plastic ware that I wrapped in the napkins and tied with raffia. I made these water bottle labels with scrapbook paper that matched the paper in the birthday banner, favor tags, and other party signs. For the farm food we served chicken strips, pigs in a blanket, bbq beans, bbq chips, farm fresh watermelon, farm fresh rolls (yes, I baked them myself!) and of course, Farmer Jake had veggies from his garden to eat :) I made little signs labeling all of the food with scrapbooking paper and attached the signs to kabobs wrapped in raffia. Jake's cake display was by far my most favorite party detail! I made this barnyard using cardboard from our new tv and spray painted it white. I hot-glued craft sticks to make the barn fence and I used hay from the bales we had in the backyard as decoration. My sister in law and I decorated the barn {I used the big Wilton cupcake for the barn!} and I baked strawberry cupcakes {the pigs}, vanilla almond cupcakes {the ducks}, and chocolate cupcakes {the cows}. It was so much fun watching the kids {and the parents!} oooh and aaah over the cake display!

For activities to keep the little farmers happy and busy at the party, we had three stations set-up. The kids made their own paper plate farm animal craft {from Oriental Trading}, they played barnyard bowling, and they fed the farm animals {the paper bags had duck food in them and the galvanized tin had milk bones for our dog!} Opening gifts and taking group shots of the party guests worked great with this barn backdrop I painted {don't look closely... I painted it on our driveway on a windy afternoon while hoping Jake would take a long nap}. And who doesn't love party favors? For most of the kids, I wrote their name on a cow bell {from the dollar section at Target back in January!} and tied it to a kraft bag that was filled with fun farm stuff, including one of my special recipe sugar cookies shaped like a sheep.

The babies had their personalized cow bell tied to a farm animal one-sie. And for the adults I made pig, cow, and roster pops to take home. We love our little Jakers so much and were thrilled that he enjoyed his 2nd birthday party! {Mmmm... root beer floats are ready to be made the background!}