Viva Mexico Party -2yr- Home Made Tortilla Chips

My 2 year-old son's birthday is on Diez y Seis (Mexico Independence Day--Sept. 16th), so for his 2nd birthday party I decided to have a fiesta.

I live only one hour from the Texas/Mexico border, so I have access to everything Mexican. We have huge families on both sides and about 60 people were there.  It can be a challenge to throw and extravagant party without spending a fortune, but luckily most of these things are cheaper in Mexico. I really wanted an authentic feel. For the invitations, I used brightly colored Mexico blanket coasters and sewed all of the party information on them with a machine.

For decoration, I used Mexico blankets for tablecloths with clear plastic covers over them. I put candles on the tables in large hurricanes as centerpieces. There was hot sauce, green sauce, and chili con queso in hand-made ceramic serving bowls. Also, I made real corn tortilla chips, put them in baskets, and put them on the tables just like at Mexican restaurants. We set the tables up outside on our deck and hung cheapo sombreros from oriental trading co. on each chair.

There were garden lanterns, huge tissue paper flowers, and colored Christmas lights everywhere. We had the party about 5:30 pm, so it looked really pretty and really added to the atmosphere.  I bought real Mexico sodas in orange and strawberry flavors from H.E.B. and put them in a big metal tub with ice.  I also had tea and virgin margaritas available.

For dinner, we served fajitas my husband cooked on the grill, chicken tacos I fried an hour before and kept under a heating lamp, homemade Spanish rice, and beans. The cake was a huge royal blue sombrero with white piping in intricate designs sitting on top of a Mexico blanket cake.

To make the cake I made 3 pieces.  First I made a large rectangle cake and stenciled lines from top to bottom using a ruler and piping gel. This is for the stripes on the blanket.  Then, I made a large round cake and centered it on top of the rectangle cake. On top of that, I put a half sphere cake I made using one of those pans you can put ice cream or something in the center of the cake. I used a star tip to ice the cake and bought most of the colored icing in tubes so I could just put my tips on them and not have to mix so many colors of icing. I iced the bottom with numerous colors and white to make it look like a Mexico blanket.  I iced the sombrero royal blue with white piping. 

On the top/front of the hat was the #2. I piped white fringe on the sides of the blanket." For candles a Mexico blanket table runner I made out of a full blanket and tissue paper flowers. I bought solid-colored paper plates cups and plastic ware in an assortment of colors to match the blankets. We had a pinata of course filled with an assortment of Mexico candy including "tequila" suckers with actual worms in them (the kids loved them). I made brightly colored favor bags with fringe (instructions on Martha Stewart's website).

For favors I bought the girls pueblo dresses and the boys serapes that I folded and wrapped in different colored ribbons.  I put them in clear colored bags I got from a gift wrap website and put the rest of the favors in with them--bottle poppers glow sticks fiesta foam picture-frame kit from oriental trading co. and a small Mexican toy. I tied the bags with pipe cleaners put a small tissue paper flower on them and each kid's name in Spanish (got that idea from this website).

We also had confetti eggs and silly string-super fun! I always like to have a spot to take pictures so I can send a picture with the thank-you cards. For this party I made a large cactus out of ply board drilled holes in it painted it bright green and put green Christmas lights in each hole. I hung a Mexico blanket for the backdrop and made large letters out of cardstock that spelled "Viva Mexico!" in bright colors with glitter.

We took a group picture of all of the kids (30 of them almost all cousins!) wearing their dresses sombreros and serapes; and then took individual pictures. My aunt who owns the local paper took the pictures for me there is no way I would have had time to do it myself. The entire night we had Tejano music playing in the background and everyone stayed until about 9:00pm. 

For thank-you's I bought cards that said "Gracias" which are easy to find in Texas and included the pictures from the party (one group and one of their child) to go in their foam fiesta frames. I have to admit that I started preparing for the party 7 months in advance and it was a lot of work. It was expensive but I started buying everything early and spread it out so it didn't seem so bad. It was well worth it though!

The party was a big success--the atmosphere was great and it felt like we were at Mexico! "