Saturday, October 30, 2010

Cooper Turns 2!

IMG_3288 Here’s the definition of irony…I had always rolled my eyes upon seeing outlandish birthdays for one year olds, thinking, “Really? The kid doesn’t even know what’s going on!”, and yet last year? For my son’s first birthday? What did I do? Throw an outlandish birthday party with hoards of people! =) This isn’t an excuse for my behavior, but here was my thought. My son’s birthday is November 3rd, VERY close to Halloween. So, I thought, why not throw a Halloween/Birthday party all in one? I do love to throw a party, so it was mostly an excuse for my fun. Everyone had a blast (at least I think they did, and I hope they did!). So, this year, I couldn’t help myself yet again. Last year the them was pirates, this year….

Disney Cars!

I decided on the theme after my son discovered a love for Mater, without ever even having seen the movie! The 99 cent store had all kinds of party favors that were Disney Cars theme, so that got me going.

*Party Favors*

I purchased noise makers, frisbees, kazoos, crayons, and spinning tops that all had the Cars theme to put into the party favors. Then, I purchased little tool boxes to fill with all the goodies, as well as little tupperware containers to house homemade play-doh and created a Cars coloring book to accompany the crayons. Here’s a picture of the goods:IMG_3431And here are all the toolboxes, with cute labels attached ready for the kiddos to take home! IMG_3275

*Invitations*

Normally, I rather enjoy doing my own “digital” work in creating the invitations. However, I found these on ebay and couldn’t resist the fantastic price and speedy time. They were done by Party Sprinkles. I blocked out the address and phone number, that’s why it looks blank.Ticket - address blocked I still couldn’t resist creating PART of the invite, so I included this little insert:Invite Insert - jpeg

 *Decorations*

After scouring the internet for some fun, cute ideas, here’s what we decided. Drinks for the party:IMG_3278

Courtesy of Les Schwab…I simply called up and asked if I could borrow old, used tires and return them within a few days. They even loaded them into my car for me! Ahh…=) This greeted the guests at the front door.IMG_3280 Food and cake tableIMG_3276 We set up the garage for the party because there was rain in the forecast and we had about 20 kids and 30 adults coming to our *ahem* 3-4 bedroom house? With some plastic backdrop sheets and a little creativity, I thought our garage looked pretty nifty.IMG_3281IMG_3282  Bless my mom…she helped me paint and create cardboard “cars” for each kid in attendance at the party. Again, I utilized free resources in the community. I called my local grocery store and asked if I could have around 20 “kid sized” cardboard boxes. No problem! Again, they even helped me load my car. We simply painted them, cut a hole in the top (many of which already had one because they were fruit boxes), glued black paper plates on for wheels, glued race car numbers on the side, and created shoulder straps using strips from a tablecloth roll. That way, it didn’t hurt the kids hanging on their delicate little shoulders. Not only did the kids have a BLAST with them, but I thought they looked adorable against the race car fan backdrop:IMG_3283My husband thought I was crazy at first for taking on this next “project”, but boy was it worth it! He helped me by cutting out the shape of Lightning Mcqueen from a sheet of plywood. I painted Mcqueen, in addition to using modge podge to affix some details onto the car body, i.e. bumper stickers, the Rust-eze logo, eyes, etc. The goal was for the kids to be able to experience the role of a pit crew. They could change the tires (they sat on screws affixed with nuts the kids could put on and off), gas it up (we installed a gas tank, i.e. a snack protector for plastic bags I found at Michael’s), and wash/wax him using little tools purchased from the Dollar Tree store (stowed away in the black plastic tub). Look at how stunning it is!IMG_3286Lastly, I set up a card table with some of the activities and door prizes.  Above it was a Happy 2nd Birthday poster with Cooper’s picture on it.IMG_3284

 *Activities*

**Door Prizes: The guests were asked to bring the ticket included in their invitation to include in a raffle for a door prize. I had two prizes to hand out for this, a Cars painting book, and a collection of Cars items, including bubbles and a tambourine. We also did a candy jar guess with hot tamales. Here are the jars and wrapped door prizes pictured below:IMG_3285 **Make Your Own License Plate:

I purchased fun foam from Michael’s so the kids could assemble their own license plates for the cardboard cars. They glued a white piece onto a colored sticker piece, then glued the bordered California (I printed them on the computer), and stuck sticky foam letters and stickers to the license plate. Then, they got to choose their car and “personalize” it. Here are some of the finalized masterpieces:IMG_3334  **Pit Crew: Performing all the previously mentioned “pit crew” activities with the plywood Lightning McQueen. Here are the children having a ball! It was definitely top two of the activities for the party!IMG_3294 76978_1631072893496_1136824375_1793337_3341859_nIMG_3328 **Tire Toss: I used two tires acquired from Les Schwab for a tire toss, using little bean bags. I think because this game was located ‘off the beaten path’ so to speak, it didn’t get a whole lot of attention, but the few that did, enjoyed it.IMG_3330IMG_3344 **Piston Cup Race: Last, but definitely not least, this was by far the favorite, perhaps tied with the Pit Crew performance, all the kids lined up outside for a “race” around half the block. We had two adults stand to block any cars coming down the street and the kids did 2-3 laps (depending on their age). We had multiple adults around holding black and white checkered flags. The kids just had a blast running around with their cars. Here are some photos: IMG_3305IMG_3307 croppedIMG_3308IMG_3310   IMG_3337 

 *Mater Cake*

How could I not include one of the highlight’s of my son’s birthday? My good friend, Kellie Cabral, created a Mater cake for Cooper’s party (If you live in the Folsom/Sacramento area and want a cake, e-mail me and I’ll find out how much she charges for you!). I humbly assisted with all the fun stuff after she baked and created the cake form. All day, Cooper kept walking up, pointing and saying, “Eat Mater cake?” Cooper was more of a risk than our 75 lb. dog was to the cake! Ha! The look on his face when we sang Happy Birthday to him says it all!

IMG_3316

IMG_3318 Here are pictures of the beautiful cake itself:IMG_3272IMG_3271IMG_3273   IMG_3274

*The After Party*

To top it all off…we invited the kids back for Cooper’s ACTUAL birthday to watch the newly released Mater’s Tall Tales (which are hilarious by the way). The thought was to have a “drive-in” where the kids sat in their cardboard cars to watch. Yeah, kids are a little squirmy, and the cars were a little small. But they still loved the cartoons and cupcakes!IMG_3395 IMG_3399 IMG_3400 Hooray for a successful, outstanding second birthday! Happy Birthday my little lovebug, Cooper. =)

30 comments:

  1. That looks like a memorable, fun birthday party! Great job on the cake too!

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  2. This is so adorable! I'll be featuring you on Everyday Celebrating!

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  3. Those kids look so cute in their cars - just adorable. Love the cake too!

    Susan,
    http://entertainexchange.blogspot.com/
    Party and Entertaining Inspiration

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  4. This is adorable! I'm your newest follower, I found you at Tip Junkie! You can find me at Sassy Sites- xoxo!!

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  5. Wow wow wow! You are one creative rockstar momma for sure! It looks like so much fun

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  6. Can you send me the details of how you did the plywood lightening mcqueen? I love it and want to do one for my son's 2nd birthday. Thanks!

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  7. Kim...it was a bit detailed, but as I mentioned, totally worth it! I found an image of Lightning McQueen online, then I put it into Microsoft Publisher (although any program where you can print out banner sizes would work). I altered the image to be the size I wanted the full size McQueen to be...I think it was like 3'x6' (it will be grainy, but that's okay). I printed it out (like on 24 sheets of paper or something absurd), then taped them together for the outline in the wood.

    Then, I had my husband cut it out with a skill saw. I primed the plywood, painted it red, then actually cut the McQueen banner I printed into the large chunks I wanted to paint, i.e. windshield, tires...to get the size and shapes of things. I just traced them onto the McQueen cut-out. Some details I painted, others (if it wasn't too grainy), I printed out and modge-podged them on. So..like the bumper stickers, eyes, Rust-eze logo, etc. I just did an image search on Google to find these.

    Lastly, we used a large screw and nuts and washers so the kids could put the tires on and off, although none of them actually did (probably because I never showed them they could, hehe). We also cut a hole and used a snack lid thing where they could pretend to put gas in, that was a big hit!

    So...that may seem totally confusing and a lot of work, but hope that helps. If you have any other questions, let me know!

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    1. Thank you for sharing the details!! I love your creativity and appreciate you sharing!

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  8. OH...MY...GOODNES..... this is adorable!!! i'm sharing on my blog. you and your wonderful party! everyone needs to see your amazingness. haha. great job!!

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  9. um... wow. i wish you could come over and do my son's birthday. WELL DONE becky. thanks for the inspiration

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  10. My son is obsessed with cars right now and he is turning two in October and I'm thinking of doing the cars themed halloween birthday party. Where did you get his cute costume? I've looked online and haven't found one as cute as your little guys!

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  11. I wish I had better news for you, Monica. A friend had purchased it a few years earlier and lent it to me. I had a similar problem of trying to find something cute. I was going to use a Cars mechanic shirt I found on Disney.com prior to that, and dress him up as a little mechanic. Here's the link to that shirt: http://www.disneystore.com/team-lightning-mcqueen-cars-2-mechanic-shirt-for-boys/mp/1284929/1000221/
    Sorry I can't be more help. Hope your party is a blast! =)

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  12. You are so creative; I feel so inspired by your ideas. Would you mind sharing the Lightening McQueen image you found that you used for your LM pit stop? I am having a hard time of finding an image where LM is completely sideways.
    Thank you so much for sharing your ideas with everyone!
    Kimberly

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  13. Hi! Me again, I meant to ask in my last post what type of program did you do your invitation insert with? It is so cute and such a great idea. I have looked at tons of party blogs with Cars themed parties but yours takes the cake! I love it all, especially how child centered it was and you can just tell how much fun the kids were having. So cute!

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  14. Kimberly - If you send me an e-mail (my e-mail is nicholas.becky@gmail.com), I'll send you the LM image as well as the invitation insert if you'd like. I used Publisher.

    And thanks for your words of encouragement, especially about it being kid-centered. That is always a HUGE goal of mine. I don't want everything to look "just so", and have nobody have fun. What's the point in that? ;)

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  15. SO awesome! Fabulous job! Where did you get the tool boxes and what was the price? Is there anyway to get instructions on how ur friend made the cake? I would order one from her but I live too far from sac.

    THx Shannon

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  16. Oh is it possible to have you share ur cars party circles via email? My son is turning 5 and these would be great and I would totally appreciate ur help. Ill email u at your email above
    Thx ShannonD

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  17. I really love your idea using the tool boxes, please tell me where you found them :)

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  18. I got the Tool Boxes at the 99cent store, but it was a year ago. I'm sure you could find something similar though.

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  19. Love love love this! One quick question! Did you design the cupcake toppers from the after party or did you buy them online?

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    1. I designed them and unfortunately, it's one of the few things that somehow didn't get saved properly on my computer. So I no longer have the file. =( Thanks for stopping by!

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  20. Can you tell me what size boxes you used?

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    1. Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, Angie. To be honest, I have no idea! They were the apple boxes (most of them, but all the same size) from our grocery store. You could call your local store and ask their apple box size, or go measure. I'd imagine they're the same almost anywhere. Good luck!

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  21. This is all adorable I just stumbled across this looking for ideas for my son's 3rd birthday party and I realized we must live in the same town- Folsom? That is too funny! Looks like your son had a great day, I might have to see if I have time to make all the little cars like you did, that looks darling.

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    1. If you email me at nicholas.becky@gmail.com, I might be able to let you borrow the Lightning car for your guests to either see, or play with. Shoot me a message and we'll see! =)

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  22. Amazing party ideas!! I'm from south Africa and planning my twin boys 4th party. Please can u let me know where u got the car image for the pit stop? Thanks

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  23. Amazing party ideas!! I'm from south Africa and planning my twin boys 4th party. Please can u let me know where u got the car image for the pit stop? Thanks

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    1. If you email me at nicholas.becky@gmail.com, I'll send you a few images.

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  24. This...no, YOU are amazing! I'm planning on making box cars too for my son's third bday. Did you spray paint these? Also, how long did it take you to plan and prepare for Mr. Cooper's party? My family's making fun of me bc we have six months and I'm already getting it together. I'm planning TWO parties one for each of my sons! So much fun. Thx for your inspiration!

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    1. I think we just painted them with regular craft paint. Honestly, can't quite remember. hehe And no laughing allowed! The more time you've got, the more you can spread out the workload and make it want you want it to be! So have fun getting on top of the party! Happy 3rd birthday to your son!

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