Rootin' Tootin' Cowboy Cookout Birthday Party

My oldest son just turned 8.  He also lost his two front teeth just in time to dress up as a cowboy at his party!  Such a crack up.

He decided months ago that he wanted his birthday to be a cowboy theme this year. It was so much fun to plan.  Pinterest became my friend (and nemesis.)

*Quick side note - on pinterest you just see the glamorous pictures. You never see behind the scenes where the kitchen is flooded with dishes, the floor is caked with sticky stuff or the heat is so hot outside your rice krispy treats and cake is melting. Nope you just see the perfect pretty pictures! I still do love pinterest for inspiration though. I do have to remain in reality when browsing or I can beat myself up for not being that "perfect mom who does it all."

I wanted to share with you some pictures of some of the things we did.  I did get almost all my inspiration from pinterest and a website called Catch My Party.  We also ordered our supplies at Oriental Trading Company and we bought some from Hobby Lobby and our local party store. I also created a bunch of decorations at home.

The entry to our ranch

My husband was able to borrow hay bales from work.  That was so exciting! The smaller picture to the right is of my Creative Memories Photo Panel (hanging on my front door.) It let people know who came to the front door to come around back for the party. It was where the cowboys were. 

These "wanted" signs greeted folks at the entrance.  Mean looking Cowboys huh?

Chuck Wagon and Waterin' Hole

  The food we served up:

Supper at the Chuck Wagon

Cowboy Chili Dogs (gluten free with no bun, chili is gluten free)

*add some chuck wagon cheese to your dog for good times!

Sassy Cow Poke Grilled Chicken Legs (gluten free)

No Horsing Around Corn on the Cob (gluten free)

Boot Lickin' Good watermelon (gluten free)

Bee-Sweetened Fruit on toothpicks (gluten free)

Waterin' Hole

Rootin' Tootin' Root Beer (gluten free)

Corn–Crackin water (gluten free)

 

Snacks

Happy Trails trail mix (not gluten free)

Curling up Cow Tales (not gluten free)

Farmland animal suckers (gluten free)

Cinnamon Horseshoe donuts (gluten free and Paleo)

Horse Feed Popcorn (gluten free)

 

Dessert

Diggin' Dangler Chocolate Chocolate Birthday Cake (gluten free)

 Game Time

We had horseshoes set up and also had a lassoing contest.  My husband was able to borrow the steer head from work too. Yay!

We also had a photo booth set up.  I used my old Polaroid camera that I had film for (film from our wedding 9 years ago.)  Each time we took a photo we hung it with clothespins on the line (attached to the E-Z up) and it had a sign that said "Most wanted Cowboys and Cowgirls. No Trespassing!" Had the film been newer the most wanted line would have looked better.  The film was a bit damaged though. I should have ordered some newer. *One of those "behind the scenes" things you don't see on pinterest.*

We played "Diggin' for Gold." They had to dig in the dirt to find chocolate gold coins. This was a hit.

We also had a "Make your own Bandanna" station with white fabric bandannas and fabric markers for coloring. I didn't get a really good picture of that- sorry. Another activity that was a big hit because it was so hot was bobbing for apples. I loved watching this one. It had me laughing.  I had planned to have a watermelon eating contest too but we ran out of time.

Desserts and Snack Table 

There's my sweet birthday cowboy. I really cannot believe he is already 8.  I was just watching some older home videos of him when he was a baby and toddler and it just doesn't seem that long ago.  I was so proud of him on his birthday.  He was so thankful and genuinely happy. 

  Most desserts had to stay in the house until the time to eat them because it was SO hot!

Thankfully my husband was able to also get a mister from work. It cooled us a little!

 THE cake

I loved our cake.  Corbin did too!  I made the actual cake. It was a chocolate cake that was gluten free. The recipe I used was this one and I made two batches. I made two twelve inch rounds and two 9 inch rounds.  My sweet friends Nellie and Andy who are both very talented decorated it. They were SO generous to donate their time to do this. They told me they stayed up until one in the morning to finish. *Yet another thing you don't hear on pinterest* I really appreciated their commitment in doing this. It really added the "icing on the cake" for the party. I had a TINY (I really do mean tiny like a half of a pea) snitch of it because she makes her own fondant too. It was marshmallowy and very tasty. I've got to get the recipe and learn how to work with fondant.

These were the Haystacks (Rice Krispy Treats) and Cinnamon and Sugar Horseshoe donuts.  The haystacks were gluten free and the donuts were Paleo. We also had the Horsefeed (popcorn) on the table for snacks.

 There's the happy cowboy!

Goody Bags

When it was time to say Happy Trails I had goody bags for guests. The goodies were wrapped in bandannas to take home.

Here is what was inside the goody bags:

Trail Mix

Stick on Mustaches

Mustache Lip Whistles

Brand Tattoos

Mustache Stickers

Farm animal or cowboy suckers

Cow Tails

(Most things were from Oriental Trading Company)

This certainly was a fun party to plan. I really love doing themed parties. It is so easy to go crazy though.  There are definitely things I learned from doing this party that I will do next time and some things I wont do again. It was a blessed day and Corbin was on cloud nine of course. We thank God for the means to be able to do a party like this.  We have been blessed.

*Another side note, these parties DO NOT happen every year for us. They come around once in a while.*

~Blessings and have a rootin' tootin' good day!~

Summer 2012 Recap

Summer is coming to a close for us.  Even though summer isn't truly over until next month we start school next Monday so I count summer to be over.  This was our first summer in our new home in our new state.  We sure had a blessed time and I truly thank God for His amazing grace and all He has poured out upon us. 

Join me in looking back on some of the "Lazy (or not so lazy" days of Summer 2012)...
(Bear with me - I am a scrapbooker and can't just choose one picture from each event. Pictures are fun anyway!)

Finger Painting

Cherry Festival

The carnival part of it. My cousin John went on a ride with Corbin.

Cody picking a little ducky.

Cherry dark chocolate ice cream.  Read about it here.

Homemade smoothie popsicles

Pool time with friends

Fourth of July

I didn't make these look as good as the links on pinterest but they still tasted yummy!

Burning our last sparkler from our wedding 8 years ago!

Made edible playdough... it was yummy.

Slip N' Slide

Watering the garden everyday and enjoying the harvest from the fruits of our labor.

Green beans

Peas

Roma Tomatoes

Max loves to water with me every night.  He goes to every plant with me and follows me around.  He is so cute.

Going to the water park right by our house for the first time.  We had a blast!

We made our own Gummies.  We learned about seaweed and carageenan which is an ingredient gummies are made from. Actually you can find it in a lot of products - even salad dressing!

Running in the sprinklers

We went on our first real train ride through the mountains. It was beautiful!  We got to wave to all the rafters in the river along the way.

The boys had fun at our table in our train car.

We had Corbin's 7th birthday! Super Mario Themed was his request.

Lastly, we went on our first camping trip here. Actually it was our first camping trip in three years - since I was pregnant with Cody!  We went with our church to "Family Camp."

They had a family activity where the kids got a handful of whipped cream and a popsicle stick.  They got to smear it on their Dad's face and "shave" it off with the popsicle stick. Steve was a trooper for this one!

We had worship everyday by our worship leaders (it was awesome) and Steve got to lead our devotional one night on Initiative and taking our part as the Body of Christ. Our church also provided smores every night for the camp.  That was a huge hit!  We had a potluck dinner one night as well.  I can't wait for next year.  It was so much fun.

Fishing in the river one day during our camping trip.

This was Cody literally 5 minutes after we got into the car to head back home after our camping trip.  He was pooped!

We had an eventful summer.  It has been fun to look back on some of the fun things we did.  I have to say that I am looking forward to the return of the school year.  More structure and routine and hopefully a little less busy.  We will see?

Ecclesiastes 3:1 ~ To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven...

Thank you Lord for a great summer season!

A Veggie Tales Birthday Party

I told you the other day that I would post another one of my favorite birthdays and I am keeping my promise!

When my son turned 3 he was really into Veggie Tales.  You know, Bob the tomato, Larry the cucumber, Junior Asparagus and Larry boy.  I figured that I would throw him a Veggie tales birthday party to celebrate him.

I started looking for party decorations and there were not that many items out there so I decided to take on the adventure of creating my own.  I could have probably done a lot more in terms of theme and decorations but for a three year old I was happy with what turned out and Corbin was thrilled - what really mattered!

Here are some of the ideas I incorporated in his birthday party:

I needed a Pinata and there definitely were not any Veggie Tales ones out there so I decided to create a Bob one.  I chose Bob because he is round!  Easier than Larry.

To make him, I paper mached a balloon and let it dry overnight.  I popped the balloon the next day and then began gluing the red, white, black and green tissue all over. I cut a hole in the top to put the candy in and the hanger that it would hang by at the party.  It turned out really cute.  The main thing I would have done differently is when I blew up the balloon initially I would have put wire all over the outside of it and then paper mached all over that.  When it came time to hit Bob the pinata he wasn't strong enough to hold up so he fell off the hanger almost immediately.  Live and Learn.  It was time consuming to make him but well worth it to have a custom made pinata.

I also made Corbin's Birthday cake and decorated him like Bob.

For this cake I used a baseball cake pan.  I had to use A LOT of red food coloring to get a true red for the icing for decorating Bob but Wilton Cake Supplies has a good coloring for that.  It is called "Red-Red." This cake was pretty straight forward. 

Since this one cake wouldn't be enough to feed all of our guests and I need to incorporate Larry somehow I decided to make Larry Twinkies.

Kids love Twinkies and what better then to add some more icing to them!  They were a hit and the most anticipated food for Corbin.  He couldn't wait to dig in.  These also worked well because they fed all the kiddos.  The Larry's took a while to decorate but again were well worth it because of the theme and making it fun for the kids. I have various piping tips from my cake decorating interest and classes in the past so they came in handy for creating the Larry Twinkies.

We had this birthday at a park so I wanted to have a party table that greeted all the guests when they got there. 

Looking back, I wish that I would have decorated the Everyday Display (the square white magnetic frame) in a Veggie Tales Theme. I kind of threw that together last minute and didn't really think about it. I made a few Bob Balloons and filled them with a bit of sand so they would sit on the table and had red treat bags for the kids to get their candy in.  I also would have given these Bob eyes to resemble veggie tales, if I did it over again.

For the games at the party we played Pin the Nose on Larry the Cucumber and Hot Bob (or Hot Potatoes - which was a bean bag Bob that I made.)

I made Larry from a big green poster board and some chalk ink for the shading on the cucumber (you can barely see it in this pic)  I made and glued eyes on him and cut a bunch of round noses for pinning (really taping.)  Whichever child got closest to the actual place Larry's nose goes won.

Here is a close up of the Bob bean bag I made.  He is made from felt, sewed together and stuffed with beans. Then I hand sewed his eyes, nose, stem and mouth on.  We tossed him around to Veggie tales music and whoever was left holding him was out of the game.  The last person left wins. My CD player wasn't working right but the kids still had fun anyway and got the idea.  It was a fun time.

I have to show you Corbin enjoying his Larry Twinkie.

And here are the three of us with Corbin before singing Happy Birthday.

I really enjoyed throwing this party for Corbin and it sure was memorable.  It goes down in my books as one of my favorite birthday parties.