A barnyard birthday bash

A few weekends ago we celebrated Alex's 2nd birthday with a barnyard theme (as seen below).

Leigh loaned me some of her old BBW galvanized tins, and I used lots of hay, raffia, bells, burlap and bandannas to decorate the tables. It gave it a very barn-esque feel. (I heart raffia--it is great for so many decorating occasions!)

Alex still isn't really into anything in particular (cars, dinos, legos, whatever). He is just now really coming out of his shell and playing appropriately with toys. But he does like barn animals, and I found some really cute party ideas online. I put Josh and Lucas to work on painting cow print on goodie bags and I myself made the cake and the banner. Cake below:

For snacks we had Moo juice (chocolate milk), Pigs in a Blanket, Mr. McGregor's Garden Patch veggies, Grains (granola), and Chicken feed (pretzel mix). Each child got a goodie bag decorated to look like a cow which held assorted barnyard themed candies (cow tails and lollipops with pigs/cows on them), stickers, stamps, and so on. They also all got a bandanna in their choice of color and a pony on a stick to take home with them. (We still have a few extra ponies that the boys think make really good swords. On another note, when I purchased the ponies I got all brown or black ponies....but Lucas insisted on picking out the PURPLE UNICORN for himself. I found that hysterical.)

Overall Alex seemed pretty thrilled with the whole party. I was worried because I planned it during his normal napping time (due to Josh's grad ceremony later that day), but he pushed through. He has been singing "happy birthday" to himself for days now. And we are yet again blessed to have such wonderful friends and family who help us celebrate our special occasions.

I have more to say about Alex being two...but I will save that for another post. He has his two year check up later this month, and I hope to have more details at that time.