I can’t believe our little guy is already 2 years old! I know everyone says this as their kids get older, but that’s because it’s true! It really does go by fast and for us the past year feels like it was sped up 3x! We celebrated Wesley’s 1st birthday amid moving boxes and the chaos of trying to put our house on the market and the year just didn’t slow down. Now we are here and *Poof* we have a 2 year old! I’ve been trying to slow down and enjoy it, and I have to an extent, but we have also been super busy. Getting ready for this party was no different. I usually like to take my time and really enjoy the planning process, but this honestly felt a little thrown together. That doesn’t mean I am unhappy with the results! Sometimes it’s good to have constraints and not be able to go over the top for everything. I think we were able to keep this party simple and focus on the friends, family and birthday boy in a way that felt genuine and special, and didn’t keep me up till 4 am the night before :P.
Note: while we had invited families with kids, we had to move our party from Saturday to Sunday to accommodate weather and a host of other things, so we didn’t end up having any other kiddos sadly, next year will hopefully be different as we make more friends with kids.
Theme: Two The Moon
Honestly there were so many cute options out there it was hard to choose. We decided that we would go with the space theme mostly because it felt easy and we had a few things already that we could use to decorate. Also, Wes loves space! He asks to watch the NASA channel to see the rockets, he also just learned how to say astronaut, it’s the cutest thing! We kept it pretty simple and opted for shades of blue and silver balloons, with a few specialty Rocket and Astronaut balloons from amazon. The rest of our balloons we grabbed from the 99cent store because the ones I wanted from amazon wouldn’t make it in time, also the price was pretty good on a budget.
The Menu:
3 flavors of slider, Pasta salad, Lentil Salad, Watergate salad, Veggies & Dip, Chips and dip and Cupcakes!
Staying with the “keep it simple” theme here, I thought it would be fun and easy to try the Kings Hawaiian roll ham and Swiss sliders that has been floating around the internet. Last month Jen and I went to a Bridal shower for our cousin and they served afternoon tea style sandwiches (think chicken salad, cucumber cream cheese, etc,) on more of a yeast roll and they were very tasty! So in addition to the Ham and Swiss rolls we also did a curry chicken slider, and a veggie slider. All of which were a hit and so easy to make! Recipes here:
Ham and Swiss Sliders: I sort of combined the recipe from this blog post with the one from brunch with Babs. The only thing I really changed was I used whole grain deli mustard inside the rolls instead of mayo. Wes enjoyed these immensely, but in case he didn’t like them I made one or two “grilled cheese” sliders as a back up.
Chicken Curry Sliders: 1 party package of Kings Hawaiian Savory Butter rolls and 3 tubs of Trader joes Currey Chicken salad. Slice the sliders in half, spoon the salad onto the bottom half and then replace the top half and cut apart. Seriously, it doesn’t get easier than this! If you don’t have a Trader Joes close to you I found this copycat recipe that is pretty close!
Veggie Slider: These were light, tasty and a great vegetarian option for party goers. I would totally make these again, might even add bacon next time for a little protein twist! you will need:
- 1 package of the Kings Hawaiian honey wheat rolls
- 1 Tub herb and garlic Alouette
- 1-2 cucumbers thinly sliced
- 1 Purple onion
- 1-2 tomatos
- 1 bunch Spinach.
Slice the sheet of rolls in half, spread with the Alouette then place cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and spinach before topping with rolls, this order keeps the tomatoes from getting the buns soggy!
Greek Pasta Salad: This is a family favorite recipe and a summer BBQ favorite and you can dress it up or down depending on if it is going to be a side or the main dish. I’ll post the recipe in the blog soon as summer gets here and we start eating lots more of this!
Lentil Bruschetta salad: This salad takes about 3 min to make and is always a crowd favorite. All the ingredients are from Trader Joes and you just dump, mix and serve! You need:
- 1 box of cooked lentils
- 1 tub of bruschetta
- 1 package of crumbled Feta.
Combine, serve and enjoy!
Watergate Salad: I’m not sure why its called this, and yes there was a lengthy conversation to try to discover its origins at the party, but basically this falls in the category of ” possibly southern, very old school, more of a desert than salad” salad. The ingredients include cool whip, pistachio pudding, crushed pineapple, walnuts, mini marshmallows and maraschino cherries. Other than being green and having a bunch of ingredients, it and a salad don’t appear to be related 😛 But it is oh so good!
Veggies/Chips & Dips: I always like to have a veggie platter next to the chips…options! We did the classic Ranch with sour cream dip for the veggies, and a green onion sour cream dip for the ruffles. Doritos are choose your own adventure 😛
Cupcakes: It wouldn’t be a birthday party without some form of birthday cake! Cupcakes seemed like the way to go! We haven’t given Wes many sweets so I wasn’t sure what flavor he would like. Rather than pick I figured I’d make two, just in case ;). We did a classic vanilla cupcake with chocolate buttercream frosting, and then a lemon cupcake (just zested some lemon peel into the mix) with Blueberry buttercream.
To keep it easy we used boxed cake mix, but I’ve got ta say….the box cake mix is not holding up the way they used to, next time I’m going back to my Aunt’s doctored cake mix recipe!
Beverages:
We mostly had a selection of bubbly water, diet soda, iced tea and coffee, BUT I also opted to make a very light Sangria just to add a little festivity for the adults. The Sangria was super tasty and not super boozy which is nice for a mid day libation. Here is what I did for it:
- 3 bottles cheap red wine (I used 2-buck chuck from Trader joes, which is now like 3.99 or something a bottle 🙂
- 2 Cups of Coconut Rum
- 3 cups of pineapple juice
- 2-liter bottle of ginger ale.
- We also sliced up lemons, oranges and strawberries to soak in the wine the night before.
Combine, stir, serve!
Party Favors:
Well… we didn’t get to hand them out, but we had little bags with some side walk chalk and bubbles just in case!
Party games:
For a 2 year old, he was really just happy playing with balloons and having lots of people be silly for him. But my husband surprised him, and our other party goers, with a whole party hokey pokey. It was our son’s favorite part and he has been wandering around the house saying “hoookey pooookey” ever since!
And that’s really it. It wasn’t really “Pinterest worthy”, it wasn’t crazy, it wasn’t over the top. It was a birthday party to celebrate our little guy and spend time with friends and family. There will be days when I will want to go crazy and run myself ragged to do something over the top and that’s ok. But on those days I will try to keep this party in mind as my sign to relax just a little and know that the day will be special not because of how many balloons I blew up at 2 in the morning the night before, but because it is a special day and I choose to honor it. Happy Birthday Wesley!
(photo credit: the incomparable Jenna Hansen Photography!)