Old MacDonald Farm -3yr- Country Style Cuisine

Old MacDonald farm party Gregory's 3rd birthday   For our sons third birthday, we went with the Old MacDonaldö farm theme.  We had his party at a place in New Orleans called Gymrompers, which is geared for young children to play with age appropriate equipment, and the floors are covered with the foam style mats. 

The location is actually in the building of a church on the 2nd floor which is a very large room with high ceilings, lots of windows and wood floors.  The location is ideal as it is quite lovely and lots of open space for the kids to play. We had an instructor that played with the children after they have had a chance for free play.  They played structured games parachute where they get on it, under it, etc.  They also sang songs such as Old MacDonald had a farm. 

I purchased foam masks from Oriental trading that had farm animals and these were given out to the children to wear while singing the songs and playing with hand animal puppets provided by Gymrompers.  The children also played and sang with some musical instruments.  The birthday boy, our 3 year old, had a fabulous time at his party.  He did not stop at all as all he wanted to do was play on the equipment  

Invitation found barn style invitation with farm animals on front on line at paperstyle.com which were reasonably priced. I took rope style ribbon and tied on top of the invitation to add to the farm look (used hole puncher and made 2 wholes to run ribbon through the top of invitation). 

The wording used for the invitations: Old MacDonald had a farm Eieio -  And on this farm we're having a party eieio - Come join the fun as we celebrate Gregory's 3rd birthday!  I put neighs only for the replies.  In each envelope I placed a small amount of hay and kernels of corn.  On the exterior of the envelope, I embossed a barn on the front and had the letters eieio printed out on top of the barn in red.    Party favor found over the summer glass cowboy boots. 

Purchased gingham red checked gift wrapping paper and cut out in rectangular pieces and put in each mug as it were tissue just to give that country look.  I tied some of the rope like cord on each of the mug handles and attached a tag that said Thanks for celebrating with me!  Love Gregory" and also embossed a barn on each of the cards.    The kids also were given their foam mask to take home.   

Menu- Chocolate doberge cake from French bakery in the French quarter.   The cake was gorgeous and absolutely delicious.  The baker copied the invitation and made a barn shaped cake with the farm animals. The top edges of the 12"x16" cake were cut so made in a barn shape. 

Country style cuisine served beef brisket with mini pistollettes, baked beans, potato salad, tray of pigs in a blanket, tray of chicken tenders, fabulous cheese torte with pita chips, chocolate pate with shortbread cookies, chicken feed (chex mix with potato sticks & m&ms), candy corn, almond cookies in shapes of farm animals, barn, #3 that were absolutely fabulous! 

We also had a rectangular shaped vegetable tray arranged like a vegetable garden and put mini scarecrow with a bell pepper filled with ranch dressing in the center with sign that read Mr. McGregorys vegetable garden (idea found on your site).  Each food item had a card with the description of what was being served and embossed barn on it.

For the drinks, we served lemonade, typical soft drinks, water, and capri suns for the kids.  I used clear plastic buckets for the ice and kid drinks.  I found some clear stickers on line that were of the Old MacDonald theme so I placed them to decorate the buckets and tie in with our theme.  I also used these clear stickers on a few of the containers that had snacks in them to tie in with everything.  

Decoration used red/white check table clothes for the tables.  Placed small haystack on table with scarecrow and corn stalks on them. My mother had also found a closeout of a few napkins packs with the Old MacDonald theme and matching cups that had farm animals and barn on them with a bright yellow round top like you see on the farms.  We arranged the cups and napkins around the cake and it looked adorable.  We also used red, white and bright yellow balloons in our décor.  The paper plates and napkins were of bright yellow since going with these colors.   

Attire my son wore jean overalls with a red/white gingham checked shirt underneath. My husband also wore a red/white-checked shirt.  I had an outfit made for my daughter and shirt for myself out of a red bandana style fabric. It was really cute.   Everything really fell into place and went really well. 

We received lots of compliments on the party and all the children really seemed to enjoy themselves.   It is nice when you plan things in advance so you can have the time to find the perfect things for your special occasions.  Hope that this information will be helpful to anyone planning a farm theme party.  It is a great theme for a toddler.