Tractors and a 2nd Birthday Party

For Joshua's Second Birthday, we stuck with using resources that were available to us... and things that he just loves.

Tractors. 

There are perks to living on dairy property-- especially when you have a little boy. Joshua loves anything that is related to tractors and farming. It makes it very fun to live here... and almost makes up for the cow-smell that constantly surrounds us. ;)

 

Haha! Can you tell I'm nervous about him sitting on the edge there... that would be my fear of heights. Those tractors are HUGE!

 Here is the whole crew, and the giant tractor, in our driveway. It was the perfect fall day (Joshua's birthday is in October). I was so glad we were able to be outside the entire time!

For a fun activity, we took the whole crew on a hayride through my parent's property. The kids loved it-- Joshua even sat still the entire time. :) 

 My friends were a huge help for this party! One friend decorated this awesome cake. I simply bought a plain chocolate cake from Costco (I went with Costco because they make yumm-o cakes and their cakes can feed a small army).

Another awesome friend made her delicious apple cider, and then helped serve both the apple cider and CrockPot Hot Chocolate. Both drinks tasted amazing, and we were able to plug the cock pot in outside so they stayed nice and warm. 

I wanted to do a Hot Chocolate Bar like in this picture... however I knew mine couldn't be quite so elegant. Thank goodness for leftover mason jars, tractor cut-outs and my sister's handwriting. Everyone enjoyed adding something to their hot chocolate to make it more interesting (I think my hubby had to try a cup for every option). 

We also served water for the kids who didn't want to drink something hot. Next time I would probably do this with the smaller water bottles. I made the template myself by simply finding a clip art that I liked and playing with the colors a bit. 

For party favors, I made two options since we had a couple kiddos with peanut allergies. The top one is just Oreos crushed to make "dirt" and a gummy worm or two. The second one was made using inspiration from this picture. Hers are better. But they were really fun to make. 

It was a wonderful day with fantastic memories! ...I kinda hope he will want to do another party like this again someday since he probably won't remember this one, and I know one of these years he is going to start having an opinion about his birthday parties. :)