Tip Junkie: Boy Birthday Themes

I am honored to have been featured on Tip Junkie again...

this time for Barrett's 2nd birthday party. It was a Cowboy theme.

The lovely Laurie Turk {genius behind Tip Junkie} but together a great post full of ides for Boy Birthday party themes!
You can find it HERE. Barrett's party is featured as #23. 

I just love her site!! It's full of great ideas.

I am happy to know that all my hard work might help someone else with a few ideas :)
It amazes me to see {on my Google analytics} that I am STILL getting many visitors every.single.day, just from Tip Junkie...coming to check out my monkey birthday party post.  That's been well over a year ago that it was featured. I'm not braggin' on ME, I'm braggin' on Laurie for having such an awesome site, that tons of people are obviously taking advantage of. Yay!

Some other recent party idea posts from TIP JUNKIE that you might be interested in:

{1st Birthday Party Themes}

{Tween & Teen Party Ideas}

{Outdoor Themed Birthdays}

I LOVE #1: the Fair Day birthday! Check out her tablecloths! Everything looks so fun. I guess I need a summer baby :)

{Girl Themed Birthday Parties}

Maybe one day...I'll get to plan one of these!!

Happy party planning :) Go get inspired and plan an awesome party!

THANK YOU, Tip Junkie!!

Mister B's Cowboy Party::The Fun & Guests

It's the middle of the week, and I think things are starting to get back to normal after all the birthday festivities. Barrett has taken some long naps the past few days...he's been pretty worn out from all the partying! I'm worn out from sorting though all the pictures! Thanks again to Mimi for taking pictures at the party for me. I knew I would be too busy to catch any action during the party, so she was a big help.

After all of Barrett's guests arrived, we decided to open gifts first. The kids were all so good during the opening. I never know what to expect...it's hard to watch someone else open all those fun things. Barrett got some really fun things. I loved that all of the cards from his little friends had their "signatures" and drawings in them. So sweet! Every time he got clothing, he would hold it up to his chest and say "fit me"? He had one {mini-meltdown} in the middle of the gift opening. I have never seen him act like that...lovely that he did it in front of all his friends and family! Kids have great timing like that :-) I think he was just frustrated that he had all these neat toys, and he wanted to play with them. His sweet cousins were trying to help, and show him how to use things, but he just wanted to do it all himself! Thankfully it didn't last too long and we were able to finish up the gifts.

After gifts, it was time for CAKE!!
I wasn't sure if Barrett would blow out the candle, but he did!

I wondered if Justin would cringe when the kids destructed his masterpieces...
but he didn't mind. It was fun to see the kids enjoying them.

The horse cupcakes were a hit!! I think all the kids had fun licking the chocolate off the horses head.

Thanks to my mom for the wonderful idea to borrow a table from one of the preschool classrooms at her school! She and my dad hauled it home Friday night, bathed it in disinfectant. and set it up in the sunroom. It was perfect for all the kids to sit together and eat their cake! I had gotten a brown tablecloth for it, and was excited that the red chairs matched my color theme!!

::Barrett's Party Friends::
We were sad that some of Barrett's little friends were sick, or not able to make it to the party.
We missed you...Grant, Hayden, Addison, Hadley & Jillian

Barrett's cousins, Kylie and Emily, dressed the part! They were so cute in their braids, plaid shirts, and cowboy hats! They were such great helpers with the little ones too!

Kylie, Norah Kate, Kennedy, Barrett, Lydia, Emily (and Brody-not pictured here)

After we handed out the favors and took some group pictures, it was time for everyone to go.
The ever-important nap time was waiting!!

After everyone leaves, I like to set up all the gifts and get a picture of Barrett with his gifts. Opening everything is usually a blur, so it's fun to set it all up and see what he got. He loves everything, and we've spent hours and hours playing with it all already!

THANK YOU to everyone for coming to celebrate with us...
it just wouldn't have been the same without each of you there!

{More photos of the party "Cupcakes & Decorations" can be found IN THIS POST}

Mister B's Cowboy Party::The Cupcakes & Decorations

Welcome to Gigi & Papa's Ranch!

Our house is way too {cozy} for all the friends and family that join us for Barrett's birthday celebration, so it's so nice that my parents let us have everyone to their house. Thanks, Mom & Dad!! I made this same birthday banner at Barrett's monkey party last year. This year, I used red and brown paper to back the pictures and tied them together with twine.

I think it's fun to have a guest book at birthday parties, so the guests can all write special messages to him. I still love to look back at last year's and see what was written.

I {love} making party favors. I like to keep them simple and edible! This year we made "Mister B's Trail Mix" for everyone to take home. I put the mix into cellophane bags, and tied the tags on with brown gingham ribbon.

::Mister B's Trail Mix::
pretzels, M&M's, mini marshmallows, raisins & Cheez-It Gripz

The trail mix for the kiddos was put into adorable little bandana-print boxes I found at Hobby Lobby. They had a great cowboy party section that matched my red/brown theme. (If you're planning a party, check out their party isles. It's not very big...but they have several theme sections, and all of the stuff is really cute and inexpensive) The sheriff badges are from the party favor section at Walmart.

::The cupcakes::

We made nine of the horses, for the kids.
If you're planning a cowboy/cowgirl party and would like to try these, our "process" is detailed at the end of this post.

For the adults, we just had regular chocolate cupcakes with red sprinkles and {2} toppers. I bought the paper for the toppers at Hobby Lobby, and my awesome sister-n-law, Kim, cut them all out for me on her Cricut! I would love to have one of those! Thanks so much, Mimi!!

The Birthday Boy waiting for his guests to arrive

::The cupcake making process::

I think it's safe to say the horse cupcakes were waaaayyyyy more intense than last year's monkeys!! We didn't start on them until Friday night after Barrett had gone to bed. I don't know why I didn't think to bake the cupcakes earlier that afternoon...too many things on my mind! So, I had to bake them and let them cool before we could start the "building" process. I had been gathering all the supplies for the last couple weeks, but had NO luck finding the circus peanuts for the heads. While the cupcakes were baking and Justin was cutting all the pretzel tails, I ran to a local grocery store and Dollar General hoping they would have the peanuts...it was my last resort! Thank you Dollar General for saving the day!!

*The idea for these cupcakes came from my friend Christie! They come from Hello, Cupcake! I didn't have the book (and had never heard of it), but there were several people out there that had tried them, and had pictures on their blogs to help us out. We made lots of our own adjustments though ;) You can Google "horse cupcakes" to find more pictures and links.

-While the cupcakes cooled, Justin carved little holes in the bottom of the peanuts, added a little melted chocolate into the holes, and then attached the chocolate wafers.

-After that, he dipped all the heads/peanuts into melted chocolate. *tip: Dipping them made the chocolate pretty thick, and the heads were way too heavy once in the cupcakes. Justin applied the chocolate with a spoon for the rest, so it was a thinner layer. Then he added chocolate chips for the ears, and we put the heads into the fridge for a few minutes to harden up.

-I carved out small rectangles from each of the cupcakes for the wafer to set inside. *tip: We discovered on the last couple cupcakes that it was better to just cut a slit (rather than a larger hole), and not remove any of the cake. This made a tighter fit when the wafer was inserted, and kept it from leaning forward too much.

-I frosted the cupcakes after the holes were cut, and then we inserted the heads.

-Justin used a zip-lock to pipe the horse manes with chocolate frosting (this is the same frosting on the cupcake...store-bought whipped chocolate)

-The tails were cut from regular twisted pretzels. I don't really have any tips for this. We made nine horse cupcakes, and it took Justin close to 30 minutes to get "acceptable" pieces for them. They had to be long enough, and you have to be really gentle when trying to get a long, curved piece. We dipped the pretzels into the melted chocolate to match the heads.

-Finally, Justin added white frosting eyes.

I think that's about it! They were a lot of work, but we had fun!! I could have never done them without my creative husband's help. He even missed a trip to Lowe's with his friends to stay home and finish them. He did get to go play ping-pong when they were done though! I think it's funny that his friend Josh told him "I've always thought of you as a man's man, Justin...hunting, fishing, playing sports...and you're decorating cupcakes." (it was something along those lines, anyway)

I was very excited with the way all of the decorations came out, and especially the cupcakes! Thanks to everyone who had a hand in helping me. It's so fun when the ideas you have in your head come to life! I know Barrett had a great time, and I hope he'll enjoy the pictures when he's older.

More pictures from the party later...

{More photos and details about the "Party Fun & Guests" can be found in THIS POST}

Barrett's Second Year: Video

I'm still working on getting all the pictures sorted from the party on Saturday!!

Until then, here is the video I made of {Barrett's 2nd year}. I am really bummed that this one has only transferred the first song, just like the last one did. Really, really bummed! It's just not the same without the music. If anyone knows of a better place to upload and share a video, let me know. I tried it on YouTube, but my video was longer than 10 minutes, so they didn't accept it. Didn't realize they had a limit! Yes, the video is 12 minutes long...I have a really hard time narrowing down pictures :-)

Grab and snack and enjoy~

Barrett's Second Year from Laura McPherson on Vimeo.

Barrett's having a wonderful birthday so far! We had a great morning with friends enjoying "birthday muffins" and now he is snoozin'. If he wakes up and it's still sunny out, we might go play at the park. Tonight we're meeting family for pizza. It's his favorite!!

Party Planning Mode

I am in full-out party planning mode...cowboy style!

Ask Barrett what kind of birthday party he's going to have, and he'll tell you "a cow party."
I laugh every time, because it sounds like "a cow potty" or "a cow patty."

The party is Saturday, so I have one more day to finish things up. I had planned to keep things simple this year...but that's pretty much impossible for me. Once I get a theme in my head, the ideas just keep flowing. Like my design/photo bio says...{the creative part of my brain never sleeps}

I can't just make the favor bags, and there they are. I have to make custom tags, use coordinating ribbon, etc. etc. It's like a disease! So anyway, all of my little projects are about wrapped up, and tomorrow night we make the cupcakes! I have already told Justin that he can't go play ping-pong with his friends until the cupcakes are done. He is the creative one in the kitchen! We are attempting horse cupcakes, so we'll see how it goes! He has to top his monkey cupcakes from last year. I told him that I get at least 10 hits on my blog a day...just related to those monkey cupcakes!