This is Ian's second birthday party we have done (when he was two we had one when my parents were in town, and I swore never to do it again because it was stressful,) insert let's take trips instead, or have a dinner party with family friends, or even splurge on gifts and just celebrate with the four of us. All of these options have been fabulous in their own timing.
Just like his sister, he had big plans for his day, and begged since January to have a party (you know once Christmas is over, they are focused on birthdays, and once those come and go they zone in on Christmas - it is a cycle.)
Ian and I have more in common, and he has a lot of my temperaments, so a smaller get together with all the flare is more up his ally - that helps me because I am not super into crowds.
I was a little taken back when he declared the theme to be minecraft. I will admit, I had no idea what the game was about - I think he was introduced by Nate's cousin's son - and that is just fine. I spend lots of hours googling this game, as well as party ideas - and modified it to work for us.
I wanted it to be special, and pretty, with mindful details, but I so didn't want to break the bank. Sweet success.
I will link all the details at the bottom of the post. The food spread was pretty identical to Hayleigh's.
We were awoken super early Saturday morning, the excitement levels where high.
So we had a normal little morning routine, because let's face it - mama has to collect herself, and well this cup motivates me...
In fact it went so smooth that we were able to leave the house, to grab lunch at our favorite Mexican joint in town, and I had time to Facetime my mom to show her the set up. I call that a win.
We had a simple little set-up with lots of delicious food, and we also left the lights up from Hayleigh's birthday since Ian wanted them as well.
Here is the set-up in pictures.
He and Hayleigh are so different, he is more of the shy type - and so singing "happy birthday" doesn't seem to be his thing. But he did great.
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| These two girls - they are so sweet together. |
I can't believe he is going to be seven!
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PARTY DETAILS:
- flower vases - I spray painted some of my regular old mason jars* brown.
- leaves - I got leafs from the grocery store for $4.
- napkins - for amazon - similar one here .
- birthday candles - I had some leftover from previous birthdays.
- minecraft clip art - from etsy (I use this from scrapbooking as well)
- birthday flags - from etsy (I did a custom order)
- minecraft food tent cards - from etsy
- cake - made by me* (I used this recipe - I tripled the recipe to make a stack of square cakes.)
- I use this fondant to decorate the cake, and Nate helped me eye ball it to cute out just right
- cake stand - I have had it for a while, and I think I got it at Home Goods.
- sweet tea dispenser - similar here
- dye free food coloring* for the red squares (I colored some fondant)
- green dye free sprinkles* (on the rice krispie treats)
- rice krispie treats - from the Smitten Kitchen cook book
- chicken salad for the tea sandwiches - I use this recipe (I also used a rotisserie chicken to speed things along)
- onion dip - I use this recipe
- black bean hummus - from the Deliciously Ella cook book
- traditional hummus - I used this recipe
- ranch dip - from the Weelicious cook cook
- pinwheels - I just used hummus (from the recipes above), grated rainbow carrots and cucumber
* things I already had on hand, but linked to just to share.
Also since I am pretty much always in the kitchen I had almost all the ingredients on hand, which cut down the costs tremendously.
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