A Rootin' Tootin' Far Out Birthday Party!

On Sunday, we celebrated Austin's third birthday TOY STORY style (his actual birthday was Sept. 28th). We had 17 adults and 24 children in our home! We are so blessed that 1) we have enough room for that many people now that we're in our new house and 2) it was decent weather, so people could be in the backyard to play!

There are lots of pictures, so I'll try to be brief in my words. Leave me a comment if you have a question on anything you see. And, if you want to see the picture larger, just click on it.

WELCOME TO THE PARTY!

This will be the third year I've re-used this banner...I've just changed the pictures each year. Each circle has a picture of Austin that represents each month of this past year.
Monkey Party banner here
Construction Party banner here

My original plan was to feed everyone dinner, but when I realized that EVERYONE on the gust list could make it, we did light snacks instead (that's a lot of people to feed!). The menu was mango-peach salsa (YUM!), guacamole, tortilla chips, fruit, snack mix, and cucumbers and carrots with dip.

And, of course...cupcakes!

I went a little easy on the decorations this year and focused more on the activities. Since there were going to be so many kids in attendance, I knew there had to plenty available to keep them all busy! I came up with the idea of having "stations" available (similar to what I did last year for Austin's construction party), but this time I gave each child/mom a list of all of these activities.


My creative juices just happened to be flowing the night before the party, so for each station I came up with a rhyme and made a sign to hang at each of the locations.
Cupcake time...Austin loves him some cupcakes!

Of course, he loves him some presents, too!
I decided that with so many kids around and you know how much kids love presents, that whoever brought him the gift he's opening, they get to sit right there next to him. Part of the joy for me was seeing the smiles in the faces of the present-giver. There is just something about watching someone open a present YOU gave to them...makes me smile for sure!

And did I already mention there were 24 kids there?!
So, therefore there were 24 goody bags to hand out. Well, technically only 19 since any child under 2 went home empty handed. Sorry Hannah, Levi, Claire, Bradley & Anna...I still love you! It just so happens that the majority of the goodies in the favor bags were found on clearance! Each bag probably cost me just about $1! The top left in the picture below were for the 15 bigger kids and the bottom left were for the 4 littler ones.

All in all, it was a smashin' success and a fabulous day to celebrate my boy! We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends who love and adore our children!!

Another birthday party TACKLED! I love planning these parties, but they are definitely a big job! Speaking of tackling, I should probably get going on cleaning up the leftover party mess. I got started last night, but somewhere along the way I lost my motivation.

{And, slowly, but surely I'm getting back into this blogging thing!}
MORE BIRTHDAY PARTY INSPIRATION HERE!

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