2nd Birthday/Patriotic Party = Success

Sigh.......it's over. The Red, White and Blue 2nd Birthday party was last Saturday and it was a huge success. I worked on decorations and food for this party for WAY to long but it was perfect. My only regret was that I didn't get more pictures. Darn! With almost 100 party guests who has time for pictures!?!?!? Here are a few to let you see how it all turned out...or at least what I got photos of.

Below: The Birthday girl ready for the guests to arrive.

Behind her is a table with two scrapbook pages ready for people to sign.

Below: Food Tables...I had three food tables, a candy buffet and a dessert table/kitchen island. The main food table was inside and had chips and salsa, chips and dip, humus and pita chips, veggies and dip, fruit skewers, watermelon wedges, rice crispy treats, star shaped sugar cookies, pretzels, pretzel sticks dipped in candy melts, red, white and blue chocolate covered strawberries, cheese and crackers and veggie stick.

The second table was also inside and had one of these on it...

The inflatable buffet was filled with ice to keep some of the food cold. It had potato salad, 2 kinds of pasta salad, fruit salad, dip for fruit and some chip dips.

The third food table was outside and had hot dog and hamburger buns, condiments, slices onion and tomato and lettuce and space for the burgers and hot dogs to be served.

Below is a view of one side of the yard...it had a big Banzai water slide, bounce toy and slip and slide. This side of the yard also had two 8 foot tables and chairs and 1 kids picnic table for people to sit at and eat. Separated by the pool, the other side of the yard had the grill area and two more tables with chairs for eating and lots of adirondack chairs for people to lounge.

The candy buffet was inside. All the candy was red, white and blue. The picture below is before I finished filling up all of the containers.

Below: Candy Buffet

I made 12-15 of these tissue paper hanging flowers for the party. I put them above the candy buffet and the main food table. I think they added a lot to the rooms and were inexpensive and pretty easy to make.

Below: Inside table to eat at...all 6 of the tables looked like this but some were 8 foot tables and the others were 6 foot tables. Each table had a red table cloth and a patriotic banner down the center. On top of the table was a sparkly star centerpiece with one picture decoration on each side of the table. The tables also had a bucket of veggie sticks and a star shaped bowl of pretzels.

I bought a variety of red, white and blue beach towels and had my mom embroider them with each child's name. She volunteered to do it before she knew that there were going to be 25 kids 12 years and younger attending the party. I rolled the towels and tied a big bow on them. They looked great together and everyone was excited about getting an embroidered towel as a party favor.

Here is the cake...the cake took FOREVER to decorate. We spent HOURS rolling out the fondant but it never got thin enough and made the cake very heavy. It was red velvet cake. I will take a fondant class and buy necessary tools before I make the cake next year.
This is the dessert table/island. In addition to the cake I made red, white and blue cupcakes for the kids to eat. I'll post directions for the cupcakes in another post.
Below: We are about to sing Happy Birthday...

After the cake we had a giant cupcake pinata and then a few horse rides.

Once the sun was set we had lots and lots of Sparklers too.

In the end it was a FANTASTIC party and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Now, I better start thinking about what I am going to do for her 3rd Birthday. ;)

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