Construction Party Cake & Decor

As we all know, Little Dude's 3rd birthday party theme was a construction theme!

    . . . If you don't know this, you might want to start at the beginning of this series here are the links:

• Unexpected 3rd Birthday Party
• Construction Birthday Party
• Make Your Own Pizza Party

We had a sandbox with toy construction vehicles as an activity that fit with the theme. The decor and cake tied in the rest. The overall colors used were yellow, orange, and black. I bought a 1000' roll of caution tape off of Amazon. The tape worked great all over instead of paper streamer. 

The biggest time hog was the cake:

I made it using 3 cakes baked in a 10" square pan. I cute the corners on the squares to make them kind of rounded, then cut up the top layer to make it look like uneven terrain from a work zone. The layers were separated by chocolate buttercream frosting. Both the cake and frosting recipes came from the Joy of Baking website:

Chocolate butter cake & frosting

Once the cake was assembled, I used more chocolate buttercream to cover the surface of the cake that would have "dirt" on it. Then I crushed a bunch of chocolate teddy grahams and sprinkled that all over the chocolate buttercream to create a dirt-like texture. It looked pretty cool. Then I filled in the rest of the cake using a white chocolate buttercream frosting (recipe from Food & Wine). I added some green food coloring and used a grass tip to create the grass. I considered using toy trucks on top, but opted for gum paste trucks since I could make those several days ahead of time anyway.

Next up was a banner. I figured that I had a ton of colored cardstock laying around so I should try use some up. Lots of freehand cutting later, I had a cute handmade banner:

The lower piece was not initially all crooked like that, but we closed the window in order to light the candles so it was left a little wonky. 

Remember these mason jar utensil holder project from the last birthday party?

I ripped off the old ribbon and paper, then did a little spray paint action:

Once they were painted I added some new embellishments and had some construction themed utensil holders. Yay for recycling!

 

Speaking of recycling. . . The cups and plates were all non-disposable. I bought them from Walmart for 4/$1. It was obviously more expensive than disposable, but I like that they will be reused many times. We even let people use permanent markers on the cups since a little rubbing alcohol cleaned it right off after the party.

The plate holder in the photo above was a $2 metal basket Goodwill find. I gave it the same spray paint treatment as the mason jars and it fit right in. Here it is before I did anything to it:

Another part of the main table display was the adult beverage. For Baby Boo's party I made a white wine drink for the adults, and it disappeared fast. I figured I would do it again for this one, only I made 2 batches this time and we still almost ran out.

Ingredients for 1 batch: 1 magnum bottle of wine, 1 bottle of Sprite, 1/2 gallon of Tropicana OJ, 1 can of peaches, 2 apples (chopped), and 2 oranges (chopped). Mix everything together and let it all soak a few hours prior to serving. 

Unfortunately, I don't have many photos of the outside decor, but it was pretty limited. We had two 8' tables with lots of chairs for people to sit outside. They both had black table clothes and caution tape wrapped around them.

Cheap plastic hard hats purchased off of Amazon were fun party hats for the little kids. . . and some big "kids":

My brother

I think that about covers it in terms of decor and such. I had planned on doing cute party favors and tool shaped sugar cookies too, but time (and organization) ran out. They didn't happen, but it really didn't matter in the end. I had enough going on that day as it was. Thank goodness they only get 1 birthday per year!

Make Your Own Pizza Party!

The last several parties I have thrown included a large budget for food. At Baby Boo's first party we even served steak kabobs! They were delicious, but I wanted to do something a little less expensive this time around that would still be a crowd pleaser. A friend of mine suggested we do a make-your-own-pizza party. I have been to one of these before for adults, but I hadn't even considered it for a kiddy party. I instantly loved the idea for several reasons:

• Pizza is pretty universally liked (and vegetarian friendly)
• It is totally customizable
• It is relatively inexpensive
• It is a fun activity for the kids in lieu of official party games

I used the same method for the party that I almost always use for homemade pizza, Chef Boyardee pizza kits:

The kit comes with a dough mix, pizza sauce, and powdered Parmesan cheese. 1 box is supposed to be enough for 2 pizzas, but I find that there is way too much pizza sauce and parmesan cheese relative to the dough. When making the crusts, I throw both dough mix packs into a bowl and combine them with 2 cups of whole wheat flour, as well as a 1/2 cup of ground flax seed. This way, there is a better ratio of sauce/cheese to dough, and I healthify the dough with the additions. I use roughly 2 cups of water with the new dough mixture and add more flour if it is too sticky. I found that 1 pizza kit yielded about 8 personal sized pizza crusts.

Construction Birthday Party

Over a week ago now, my Little Dude had his 3rd birthday party.

I procrastinated too much on a few things, but overall, it was a pretty awesome party.

I originally was thinking of a Bob the Builder themed party, but ended up generalizing it to a construction type party.

Too Funny Tuesday

I didn't want to wait for a Friday Funny so I figured I would make up a new (not quite) alliteration. Sorry it has been nothing but crickets around here lately. Between a couple of projects, Little Dude's upcoming birthday party, and some unseasonably gorgeous weather, blogging has been taking a bit of a back seat. I will eventually catch up though. . . (maybe!)

The funnies don't stop when I'm busy though, they just don't always get written down and immortalized in blog form. Here's a real simple one from the other day when I was having some knee issues: I sat down and complained to the hubs that my knee had locked up. Little Dude overheard, came running and said, "Oh no mommy, should we find a key?"

It always makes me laugh when kids don't quite get a figure of speech, yet try to use it anyway. My kids sometimes get confused by the singular versus plural forms of words. For example, Little Dude used to exclaim "Yike" instead of "Yikes" when he first started talking. He hasn't done that for over a year, but recently Hailey brought me back by starting up with "Oop" whenever something drops (accidentally or otherwise). Little Dude really took the cake today though. He tripped over something on the floor and in his frustration he yelled out, "Oh craps!"
        *Not my proudest mommy moment since I'm pretty sure I know where he got that from. . . 

I'm working on it.  

Half Birthday Fun

My precious and amazing little Baby Boo is officially 18 months old! I can't believe how quickly the time has flown. It doesn't cease to amaze me how quickly a baby can go from a completely helpless little bump on a log to an autonomous little person brimming with personality.

Cuddly teething baby

Friday Funny - March 9, 2012

Here I thought I would have to skip this week because there wasn't anything memorably funny to write about. That was until earlier today.

We were heading into the house after being out and about when I tripped on the sidewalk. I luckily caught myself since I was carrying a passed out Baby Boo, but my purse did fall and spilled its contents all over. Little Dude looked over at me and said, " Oh mommy, you have to be much more careful. The neighbor might see all your crampons!"

Thanks kid!

Unexpected 3rd Birthday Party

I LOVE throwing my kids birthday parties. I love the planning, the prep work, and the party itself. They are, however, a lot of work. I went big for my kids' 1st birthdays. Not huge, but big enough that they required a lot of time and energy (and $) from me. Check out party related posts HERE for Baby Boo's 1st birthday party. I was hoping to tone things down and do a small family only celebration this year for each kid, but Little Dude has decided that will not be the case.

I am considering getting Little Dude a balance bike for his birthday. So, last week I asked him if that sounded like something he would want. He replied, "Oh yes, I want a bike for my really big birthday party!" Until then, my mind was working under the small party model. This year, Little Dude is turning 3. With 3 come expectations that he never had previously. I don't know who told him he was having a birthday party, but he knew pretty well what he wanted; He even listed off several of his friends that he wants to be at the party.

*sigh*

Friday Funny - March 2, 2012

Little Dude was wading through our junk mail pile when he came upon a Vickies catalogue. Intrigued, he started flipping through the pages and looking intently at all the models.

He studied this particular page for about 30 seconds. Then, he looked up at me and said, "Oh my mommy. . . all of these ladies have eyebrows!"

"Look at all the eyebrows mommy!"

That's my boy - Ever the observant one!

Boys & Their Toys

Yesterday, Little Dude was drawing in the living room. He drew 4 smiley faces and told me that they were mommy, daddy, Baby Boo, and himself. He is getting pretty good at drawing faces, so I showed him how to draw stick people bodies on them. Once we had drawn stick bodies on all 4 faces, he had an additional request; for me to draw penises on him and daddy.

DIY Wood Plaque Frame

Remember the "almost finished" art wall in Baby Boo's room?

Here is a reminder:

I put in a lot of time and effort into gathering the perfect collection of photos and what-nots for the wall. Check out that whole post here if you want details.

There was 1 thing missing though, and that was a frame for the 8"x10" print on the very left of the middle row.

Since I was busy doing some furniture painting this past week, I figured that I might as well try to tackle a frame for the art wall while I was at it. 

My inspiration came from something I pinned a while back:

Frames by The Organic Bloom

Photograph by Polka Dot Umbrella Photography