Day at Farm -2yr- Cowboy Hats & Animal Masks

For my son's 2nd birthday we decided to make our backyard into A Day at the Farm.  

INVITATIONS:  I cut 2 cows out of white cardstock and then connected them together with a hole in the corner with red ribbon.  I decorated the outside with black spots and glued on decorative, googly eyes.  Then I just came up with a  cute saying for the inside that was related to the theme and had all the party info. I places a tiny cow bell around the front of the cow's neck with raffia.  I collected pics of everyone invited and glued their pic to the cow to look like they were riding.  I put them inside a small tin pail with some raffia and hershey kisses.     The kids loved them and they were durable enough for them to play with.  

FOOD:  I made haystack cookies, farm shaped jello jigglers, sausage balls, fruit salad in a trifle bowl with a big bow tied around it, veggie platter, cheese-cracker-pepperoni platter, farm shaped cookies, stick pretzels in a tin pail that was labeled as hay, chex mix in a tin pail that was labeled as chicked feed,  chicken nuggets.  We had it in the early afternoon so only snacks and appetizers were needed and not a while dinner.

For the cake, I made a cow face that turned out great.  See the attached photo. Then we used individual ice cream cups with cow and horse shaped sprinkles on them for toppings.  They were a lot easier for the little ones to eat without making a huge mess. The kids loved having their own ice cream cups.

DECORATIONS:  We had miniature pony in one corner of the yard.  The kids all got to sit on the pony and get their picture taken.  Which I then used for their thank you notes.  I made multiple signs out of  cardstock and attached them to wooden sticks to place around the yard.  I found these huge stick on farm stickers at the local book store that worked perfectly for the signs.   

We had a farm themed banner custom made from www.birthdayexpress.com that was placed on the front porch along with balloons in each corner.  It wasn't hard to see where the party was that day! We passed out cowboy hats to everyone as they arrived and farm animal mask that we purchased from www.orientalexpress.com. I had a duck pond sat up that was made out of a plastic pool filled with water and a ton of cowboy and cowgirl themed rubber duckies that we let each child pick one out as they left.  

My husband made a huge barn out of cardboard boxes and painted it to look like a real barn-it had windows and a door and everything. I ordered 2 dozen inflatable farm animals from www.orientalexpress.com that we placed all around the barn along with some scattered hay.  I used red and yellow balloons that I placed all throughout the backyard and in front ( I used like 150 balloons!  Crazy! I know.)I also purchased 3 huge farm balloons from ebay that I used on the porch fro decorations.

I used red and white checkered tablecloths for the food table and gift table.  I used a solid red plastic tablecloth with farm sstickers all over for the main tablecloth where the cake was served.  I used red napkins tied with raffia and coutry style lemonade that was served in cowboy boot shaped cups, which was ordered from oriental express also. 

FAVORS:  I bought red bandanas and filled them with farm themedgoodies: 2 plastic farm animals, 5 farm stickers, box of animal crackers, raisins and a sugar cookie on a stick decorated with sprinkles(looked like a lollipop), I attached a cute thank you note in the form of a song that was to the theme of take me out to the ballgame" to each lollipop with ribbon. .  I then tied all of them to a tree in the backyard.  When the kids were leaving they got to go pick an "apple" from the tree. 

GAMES and ACTIVITIES: The kids were really too younf for organized games so we did a lot of different activities.  I rented a child sized table from the local party supply store and covered it with a white we gave each child a farm shaped sugar cookie and let them decorate their own cookie with different colored frostings and toppings: marshmallows coconut m&m gummy bears.  This turned out very successful! 

We used plastic spoons to spread the frosting.  We also had my sons swingset and playhouse on one side of the yard that the kids played on also.  With having multiple play areas throughout the yard it kept everyone busy.  I also had an area closed to the patio and out of the way that was for the infants at the party.  I placed a huge blanket that had baby farm animals on it on the ground for them to crawl around on or sit on and play with toys. 

I brought out all of my son's baby farm themed toys:  little people farm farm animal blocks assortment of farm themed books farm stuffed animals... I also had my son's baby swing and bouncer sat out as well in that area.  I just wanted the parents to be able to enjoy themselves also.  This was a huge success with the parents of the little ones. 

Overall the party was a huge hit with parents and chldren.  "