birthday celebration with family

You're not tired of Austin's birthday yet, are you?? ;) I took a little break from party posts, but I have so many fun Halloween things to share that I figured I should probably finish up and move on...especially since his family birthday party was a month ago! The Sunday after his birthday, we had family over to finish off Austin's birthday week. We kept with the Disney Cars theme (as with the party with friends) and since it was after lunch and before dinner, we opted to keep it simple with some snacks and dessert!

Even though I only needed to make invitations for 5 families, I still wanted to put some effort and energy into coming up with a cute invite (that's half the fun, right?). The image of Lightning McQueen I found online and the gingham checked paper I found at a local scrapbooking store. Everything else is Stampin' Up! (cardstock, punches, and brads). I even found a Disney font on my computer!

If you pull up where the star is, the invitation part is revealed...

I can't say enough how much I love my kitchen island...
it's so perfect for parties!

Snacks included apples and homemade caramel dip (with toffee bits), carrots and dip, kettlecorn, M & M's...
...Cars Cheez-Its,
and Cars-shaped graham bites!
I picked up these two snacks pretty close to when Cars 2 had hit the theaters. I found Cars themed things everywhere...even juice boxes!


Mikayla made little checkered flags for everyone...that's my girl!

We had Austin's Cars GeoTrax set out for everyone to play with (a Christmas gift from the grandparents last year).

And Cars coloring sheets to keep little hands busy!

I didn't organize many activities, but we did do a couple of fun things as a group. One of them involved each of the kids racing against the clock on a jumping Cars ball. It was so fun to watch each of them take a turn...many, many giggles were had! Look at these smiles!


Then we did some dancing to the "Life is a Highway" song from the Cars soundtrack. Austin broke out his break dancing moves apparently!
PRESENTS!!
{I just love Austin's expressions!}
Thanks cousin Hailey, Noah & Jacob!
Thanks cousin Hunter (& Hannah...not pictured)
Thanks cousin Parker & Riley!
The Cousin Line-Up
...with their silly faces on!
Time for a cake!

This is my first year of actually making a cake...I usually decorate cupcakes! When I saw this idea online I knew I just had to make it! It is made out of two round cakes (one white, one chocolate). I then frosted it and painstakingly covered every inch as best I could (because I'm a perfectionist!!) with finely crushed Oreo cookies. To make the green grass, I cut out a piece of tinfoil and laid it on top before covering with the Oreo cookies. I carefully peeled it off and then doused it with green sprinkles. I used white frosting to make the lines in the road and added some miniature Cars I had found at the store.


Just one more candle to get...
It's delicious, Mom!
Treat Bags for all of the cousins!
Birthday Celebration #4 complete!!

And, only one more year until he turns FIVE. If it's anything like this last year, it will go way too fast!!

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And because of the theme of this blog post, I just thought it would be fun to share one of the pictures that we took while on our vacation to Disneyland...

Doesn't Austin look like he knows exactly what he's doing?
I love it!!