Construction -3yr- Road Work Site Cake

CONSTRUCTION THEME FOR A 3 YEAR OLD-Our son loves dump trucks and cement mixers and was thrilled when he saw the construction theme partyware at a local party store.

INVITATIONS: Construction theme invitations that matched the partyware.

DECORATIONS: We bought the napkins and invitations from the set and used bright orange cups, plates and utensils. I found traffic cone candles that we cut the wicks off of and used to decorate the table. We also put some old (but in great shape) metal Tonka Toys on the table (these belonged to my nephew who is now 18!). We scattered "happy birthday" confetti on the table also.

We served a buffet and used a toy dump truck to hold the bread (lined with a construction theme napkin). We had construction equipment cutouts as decorations. For the party hats we purchased the white paper painters caps at The Home Depot.

ACTIVITIES: We had an obstacle course using upside down sawhorses, a 2x6 (balance beam) and cones (borrowed from the local rec. department). We also had them put a small rock in a childs wheelbarrow and dump it in a certain spot. We played pin the boulder on the backhoe also. The kids decorated a lunch sack for their "job" with stickers and markers. They got to take these home. I later heard that a lot of them brought them to preschool for lunch. They held up for a long time!

CAKE: I made a double layer 1/4 sheet cake and iced the sides black with yellow vertical lines on it. The top was frosted to look like a roadwork site. One quarter was frosted in chocolate with piles of "rocks" (various brown and speckled jellies beans and candy that looked like rocks). Another quarter was chocolate also but with chocolate crunch sprinkles to look like a pile of dirt (I put a scoop of frosting and sprinkled the crunch on it).

One quarter was frosted grass green (use paste food coloring if possible, it keeps the frosting from getting runny). The other quarter was green also but with crushed nuts sprinkled around. I used black frosting to curve a road across the cake, half was completed and half was "under construction". The completed side was piped with yellow icing to look like the lines on the road the "under construction" side was just black with more "dirt" (chocolate crunch sprinkles) sprinkled on it. I used the candy rocks and also candy that looked like Legos on top of the cake in a few places.

I also found some mini road construction signs to decorate the cake with. I used a Matchbox toy dumptruck (washed) and put some sprinkles in it to look like it was dumping on the dirt pile. The cake was a definite hit but it was very sweet because of all the frosting!

FAVORS: We used plastic construction hats (these were a hit because they were actually from a Laborers Union so they had their local # and name on it!) and filled them with a lot of goodies (probably too many but my sister and parents had a great time buying the favors).

We put in: paint aprons from The Home Depot, a set of plastic tools, a flashing safety light, a bouncy ball that looked like a rock, a construction blow-out toy, construction stickers and a Matchbox construction vehicle. We were really able to keep costs down by getting a lot of things at the party store and Wal-Mart. Also note, Wilton makes a 4-pack of chocolate sprinkles that were perfect for the cake.

THANKS: For these we used my sons stationary and included a picture of the child from the party.