Construction Party -2yr- Cake in a Dump Tryck

For my son's second birthday we had a construction birthday party.  He loved anything with wheels so everything was based around that. 

For the invitation I folded a piece of construction paper in half and cut out a dump truck shape and wrote : "Caution!  Nathan is turning two".  I cut the black circle for the wheels and attached them with brass fasteners so the wheels would spin.  And, to add personality to the invitation I took a picture of Nathan steering a car and cut it out and made it look as if he was driving the truck.   

For decorations I made a truck out of a big screen TV box that I asked for at Best Buy. I cut out the box so there was a window on each side and in the front and painted it blue.  The kids loved playing in the truck and was a great place to take pictures.  Out of cardboard I made street signs and placed them around the house.  As you walked in the house there was a sign that said Nathan Town population 4 and a Road Construction ahead sign.  I also made a NO NO sign (shaped like a stop sign)  and a Kid Zone sign. 

Instead of streamers we used Caution tape that I bought at Home Depot for a couple of dollars.  And we set up orange cones through out the house.    As each child walked in they received a construction hat and nail apron. 

The construction hats I bought at a party supply store for 50 cents and I printed stickers on the computer with their names on them to attach to the hats. The nail aprons I bought at Lowe's very cheap and stamped a dump truck on them. 

The pockets were great to put their party favors in:  A little tikes tool, Sesame street vehicle, truck fruit snacks and a truck book.  Mom and Dad also had aprons to wear with trucks stamped on them.  This made it easy to keep things you needed close at hand.  We had two cakes for Nathan.  I took a chocolate cake mix and cake it into squares, chocolate pudding and crushed Oreo cookies and layered them in one of Nathan's big dump trucks and the cake was served with a shovel.  I also made a dump truck from making two pound cakes.  Using donuts for the wheels and crushed cookies in the back for dirt, it looked like the real thing and he loved it. 

The cake was served in dump trucks and eaten with shovels.  The two year olds love it!! 

At two years old we didn't have many games, but we tried to created activities for the kids and parents.  There was a name that truck game.  I had different pictures of trucks hanging throughout the house and the person that could name the most correctly won. 

We also had a playdough station where you could created your own vehicle and Nathan selected his favorite and they won the prize.  And, we had a name that word game.  I had Nathan say words into a tape recorder and the adults had to guess what he was saying.  He loved helping with the game.

For prized I took pictures Nathan had colored and painted and framed them (A Nathan Alexander original).  A couple more fun ideas.  I had made a couple of scrapbook pages with the invitation on it and had everyone write a message to Nathan. 

For Thank You notes I have made cards on the computer with a picture of him playing with or wearing what he got as a gift from that person.  What a fun birthday party we had and my son wakes up everyday wanting to know if we are having a party.