Farm Party -1yr- Stuffed Animal Relay

My son Timothy's 1st Birthday party was a Farm theme.  Since he was so little, I thought he would  be interested in farm animals.  I have ordered a birthday pack from "BirthDayZbyShindigZ. Com".  It  included everything even the invitations.  It also included a cow pinata and a brown horse mylar  balloon.  In the invitations, I told everyone to wear their best farm clothes. 

When the guests  arrived, I gave each guest a bandana (red for women/girls, blue for men/boys) which they took as a  party favors at the end of the party.  My son's birthday is in December but since we live in Florida  (Northwest Florida) I have decided to do it outside in my parent's backyard (they have a huge  backyard).  That day was a little cold outside, so everything turned out perfectly. 

DECORATIONS:  For decorations I bought hay stacks from a local farmer.  I placed them all over the backyard, but  most of them I placed close to the table with food so that guests can sit on them.  I covered them  with blankets so they would more comfortable to sit on.  Two of the hay stacks I placed separately  for the gifts.  I bought red, green and blue balloons and filed them with helium.  I placed some of  the balloons on the food table and the rest of the balloons all around the party area.  We also have  a small shed in the back yard. 

Me and my cousin (who helped me a lot with the decorations)  covered it with a big sheets of red poster paper.  Then my cousin (who was also an art major in  college) painted white lines to look like a real red barn.  Next to our "barn" I put one hay stack and  on top of it I placed a child's horse saddle (a friend of my let me borrow it).  At the party the kids  would sit on it one at a time and we took pictures of them with a "red barn" on the background.  I  also ordered beach ball looking inflammable farm animals from "Oriental Trading.com".  I placed  them all around the backyard.  I also had a little tub filled with water which I colored blue with a  food coloring and placed little rubber ducks in it. 

THE FOOD: for the food I bought honey BBQ  wings and spicy wings from Sam's Club. I had two different kind of potato chips.  Since my family is  from Russia I made some Russian salads.  I also made some red potatoes in the oven.  For drinks  we had sodas in the cans that I have placed in a metal tub filled with ice. 

For the cake, my sister  had to help me in this department since I am the cook not the baker.  We made a Russian cake but  we made it in a form of a pig.  We made a big round cake, a medium size round cake and a very  little round cakes that we used for the snout and ears and hoofs.  A big cake was the body of the  pig, the medium was the pig's head.  I colored white icing with a little bit of red food coloring and it  turned out pink.  My cousin drew eyes, edges of the hoofs and ears, etc.  It turned our very well,  everyone loved it (and it tasted great also). 

GAMES:  The first game was the racing game.  I had two  children playing at a time.  We gathered all the inflammable farm animals and split them into two  piles (6 animals in each pile).  Each child stood next to their pile.  I have designated the stop line  and the beginning line. 

On the word "GO" the kids had to grab one animal and run to the stop line  and put the animal behind the stop line, then run back to get another animal.  This way they had to  transfer all their animals from the beginning line to the stop line.  The first child to finish  transfering all the animals was the winner.  Then I had adults try to do the same thing (ofcourse the  distance between two lines was little bit bigger).  As the prizes for this game I gave out a little toy  farm animals. 

Another game was for the little children.  One of the robber ducks that were in the  metal tub with blue water had a letter "P" (for prize) written on it.  The child that picked that ducky  was the winner.  Then we had a cow pinata hang on the tree.  The kids had fun taking turns to hit  the pinata.  Unfortunately nobody from the kids could brake the pinata so I asked my 15 year old  nephew to do the honors.  He broke the pinata and kids were excited when they saw the insides  flying from the pinata. 

All throughout the party I had a neighbor (who brought his mowing tractor  and we attached a little wagon that I gave my son as a birthday present to the tractor) give kids  rides in the wagon around the backyard.  They loved it very much.  When we were done with the  games, we went inside for the cake and that's when we opened the presents.  My son got a lot of  farm related toys which he enjoys more and more with time.  At the end of the party I gave each  child a favor bag that I put together myself.  I bought dark red gift bags from DollarTree store that  looked like a farm bags. 

Inside I put little toy farm animals, coloring books (I made them myself by  printing coloring pages from the internet and putting in the folders.  On the front of the folder I  glued a picture of the farm with a writen name of the child that it belong to), crayons, stuffed farm  animals.  And the kids got to pick one of the inflammable farm animals to take home with them. 

I  think the party turned out great.  Everyone loved it.  I got a lot of ideas from this website.  My son's  next birthday party will be "Jungle" theme and I already started gathering ideas and things for that  day.