Farm Party -2yr- Cardboard Animal Pen

Farm/Barnyard Theme Party My son turned 2 this year and he loves tractors.  I wanted to give him a party with tractors so I decided on a Farm theme. 

I ordered Barn shaped invitations online and wrote: "Oink, Cluck Baa Moo, Caleb Tanner's turning 2"  My RSVP was "neighs only" and I also included the message "wear your barnyard best for the petting zoo and pony ride.  I rented a pony and petting zoo for the first hour of the party.  That was plenty of time for the kids to have a few rides and spend plenty of time with the zoo, any longer than that the kids lost interest. I passed out cowboy hats and bandanas to each of the kids when they arrived (bought at orientaltrader.com). 

While the petting zoo and pony were outside in the backyard, I transformed my 3 car garage into a real Barnyard Bash.  I used roles of blue, green, and brown butcher paper to line the walls to make a outdoor backdrop.  I then used an overhead projector and traced farm animals on other shades of paper, they were then cut out and taped on the backdrop.  This made it look like animals grazing in the fields around the garage.  I had a picket fence head board and hung a stick horse and cowboyhat on the two bed posts on another wall.  I made a Banner that had John Deere clip art on it and read "Happy Birthday Caleb".  This was hung above the picket fence. 

I also had a sign in the front yard with tractors saying Caleb's Farm Party! Around to garage were chairs and bales of hay for seating and a variety of different shaped tables with red and white checked table cloths.  I used my son's John Deere tractor toys and used them as centerpieces for each table, I then tied either green and yellow or red and cowprint helium balloons to the tractors.  I used a refrigerator box to make a small barn, I painted it red an white and laced a piece of rope through the door so the kids could open and shut it.  I used a clipart chicken and yellow strips of paper and perched it at the top of the Barn box, the roof was another sheet of white cardboard making a curved roof and taped inside.  This was a big hit with the kids after the petting zoo left. 

I also found a twin size mattress box lid (found behind a mattress store) and cut the sides out in a fence style.  This gave the effect of a animal pen.  I made pigs and sheep out of balloons and tied curling ribbon on the ends for tails and threw them in the pen. This area was great for the small infants and toddlers that were there that could not walk, they had a blast crawling around with the animals.  The food table was covered in red table cloth with a red and white checked runner.  My sons Little People Barnyard set was the centerpiece of this table along with a few tractors. 

The food included pigs in a blanket, haystacks (or pretzelsticks and potato sticks in Straw baskets)  a veggie tray (cauliflower, brocolli, carrots and grape tomatoes) arranged on a styrofoam board that was boardered with a popsicle stick fence, the veggies were attached to the board by toothpicks in lines to make it look like a garden.  Galvanized small buckets lined the fence filled with ranch dip.

I made the cakes using the wilson tractor pan and using a star tip to fill in with buttercream icing.  I also had a house shaped pan that I iced in red and accented with a white roof and trim to make a Barn.  I found the cutest barnyard paper products in bright primary colors on shindigz.com after looking through alot of other sites with pastel versions of farm accessories. 

I served juice boxes, cokes and bottled water to drink.  After eating cake the kids were taken on a hay ride through the neighborhood, while we sang farm songs like "Old McDonald" and "Farmer and the Dell" My friend brought his  tractor for us and hitched up a trailer filled with Hay for the ride.  The kids and the parents jumped on for the fun ride. 

My son's main gift from us was a cast iron John Deere tractor with peddles, which many loved riding throughout the party.  Goodie bags were made out of brown paper bags with animal stickers on them and tied with twine.  Inside the childen enjoyed a farm board book and a co-ordinating farm animal finger puppet (oriental trader) and snack crackers. 

The party lasted about 2 hours and was enjoyed by all, I still get comments about the event 2 months later.