Lifesong Mama & Baby: Burke's Farm Party

Burke is the kid you see sitting on every riding mower in Lowes. He loooves tractors. {what little boy doesn't, I guess...} And he loves animals of all shapes and sizes--his favorite {the day I asked him, anyway} is a cow. So we decided to put together a farm party to celebrate his second birthday this year. Although I didn't really get many actual invites sent out {thank goodness for Facebook events!!}, I printed these invitations and built Burke's party around them.

I thought it would be cute for us all to wear a shirt with one of the animals from the invitation on the front. So, using this diy screen printing tutorial, I whipped up some shirts for us to wear. {Of course, I didn't really start planning his party until about a week before, so naturally I was begrudging my ambition as I stayed up way too late the nights before the birthday bash.} And ps--don't you love his outfit?? He insisted on wearing his boots and I think they completed his outfit!

I found some free templates for animal silhouettes and scaled them in Word {because I don't have fancy programs that would probably make my life a bit easier} to be the size of the print I wanted for each shirt. I used a 6" embroidery hoop to make the pig, cow and horse and a 4" one for the duck. I found Ben's and my shirt at our local thrift store and used one of Burke's old t-shirts, since his would be irreparably filthy by the end of the day. I had the hardest time finding a single white onesie for Violet to wear and ended up having to buy a 3-pack. {I should have read the label better because when I got them home and washed them I realized they were LONG SLEEVED onesies...ugh! So I just cut off the sleeves and left them unhemmed because, well, there just wasn't time for that too!} I thought they turned out pretty well but the paint did separate a bit when the shirts were stretched.

And because Violet couldn't just wear a onesie to her brother's birthday bash, I quickly whipped up a cute little diaper cover with some leftover gingham that wasn't otherwise being used. I used this free pattern and tutorial and found it super easy to follow. {You can find the tutorial I used for her bonnet here}

I decided to skip the cake and go with cupcakes this year. We had vanilla bean cupcakes with vanilla bean icing and vanilla bean cupcakes with strawberry icing. Both were delicious and I may or may not have eaten half of the icing as I put them together. I made the cupcake toppers using free images I found on the internet and simply inserting them into Word and adding a circle shape over top to make cutting easier. Then I put my hubby and inlaws to work cutting and pasting! In addition to cupcakes, we had my mom's homemade whoopie pies {cow patties??? I neglected to make that label!}, and a ton of other sweet snacks.

I went with a traditional picnic menu {at least for my neck of the woods} since it reminded me of things you might eat on a farm {at least we ate them growing up on a farm}. I kept the menu simple with pulled pork, hotdogs, baked beans {from scratch and to die for!}, macaroni salad and fresh fruit and vegetables. Click here for my burlap happy birthday bunting. And for another easy diy, I painted an old wooden cutting board with chalkboard paint which we usually use as our grocery list.

Burke is super into singing happy birthday to anyone and everyone all the time, so he was really excited for that part of the party this year! I found tractor candles at the grocery store {surprising little win!} which pretty much made his whole year. {I love 2-year-olds!! They can--at times--be so easy to please}

Although he was a little shy with all of the attention, he wasted no time diving into the icing on his cupcake. I'm pretty sure this {and the bajillion cheetos he ate} was his favorite part of the party. And seriously, check out his grubby face and hands...those are beautiful signs that he was having the best day ever and that's all I wanted for him.

We kept the party small this year {went waaaay over board on #1, but with 2 huge families, it's kind of hard not to} with mostly local family members in attendance. For the few kiddos that came, I made cute little drawstring bags and filled them with some toy animals and an apple.