This Birthday party was brought to you in part by Pinterest

blowing out the candles

Jack turned four at the end of February.  I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around that, four, four is a big kind, officially no longer a toddler.  And everyone knows a big kid deserves a friend birthday party, something I try and avoid when they're too young to know or care who attends their birthday party.  So I spent some time on pinterest and planned out a Fireman birthday party, at the request of the four year old.

we had a pinata, Chloe figured it out without instruction :)

First I did the ol' evite of course, but for the kids in his class I needed a physical invitation so I copied Rage Against the Minivan's idea and printed out the evite as a photo, to pass out to all the kids in his class.  They turned out great and cost me 10 cents a pop.

For the cake I knew that no amount of pinning would help me turn out anything other than a hot pink cake with chicken scrawl that said "Happy fireman Birthday party Jack." So I turned to a professional who also happens to be a dear friend (I'm telling you folks if you cannot craft to save your life surround yourself with those who can and you will never be disappointed).  When I saw what she had made Jack I cried, yes I'm for real, all I had told her was it's a fireman birthday party and ps- can you use lots of frosting because I love your frosting so much I want to eat it with a spoon.  And she came up with this amazing firetruck cake, with all these details like "ladder 4" and "JCFD" (Jack C fire department) on it.  I really couldn't believe that she expected us to cut it up and feed it to everyone like it wasn't a piece of art, until I remembered the frosting and I decided it was worth it.

Source: mamalovesfood.com via Jenny on Pinterest

I tried to keep the food simple considering the party was not going to overlap a meal time and it's enough to make anyone lose their mind trying to clean a house with three children still in it!  So I just did chips and candied jalapeno dip (it was ridiculously good), fruit, pigs in a blanket, and these amazing ham and cheese crescent rolls (have I told you how much I love that blog).  I'm known for overdoing it in the food department, but actually most of it was eaten up and it wasn't even me who ate it :).

All the decorating came straight from pinterest.  I thread balloons using a thread and needle and hung them up all over the house, we cut up plastic table cloths and hung them above the food table and the gift table, and at the last minute I rolled out some wrapping paper as a table runner on the snack table.  It was the most decorating I have ever done for a party but it was all easy and looked great.  I was up till the wee hours in the morning threading 50 balloons and hanging them though out the house, easy but time consuming.

The party really felt like a success and I think Jack felt loved and celebrated the way I hoped he would.  Besides his friends and their families we had a lot of our family come down, which was like icing on the cake (hah!).  I'm still finding a balloon here and there over a week later, and I've made a mental note: come July when the kids are making you feel like you might run away from home, head to the dollar store and buy them some balloons, fill them up and let them play, hours of fun!