Can you believe that Remy is already two years old? Where does the time go? They say babies don’t keep, and it is the truth!
About three weeks ago, we celebrated our sweet boy’s birthday with an outdoor party full of family, close friends and lots of fun. Remy had an absolute blast! I love party planning, so throwing a bash for our two year old was no exception.
Remy loves animals, and so we went with a Party Animal theme. “The Animals Came 2 By 2 to celebrate Remy’s 2nd Birthday”, is what the invitation read. The main inspiration came from The Beaufort Bonnet Companies party Elephant (it’s a cute elephant with an orange party hat & yellow pom pom on top). It was a print that they released in the spring, and I absolutely loved it. Remy had on the Jon Jon with the elephant, which sadly sold out (I ordered his back in May) but, I believe the shorts are still available in a few sizes.
My dear friend Caroline, of Sweet Caroline Designs, created the perfect invitations. She incorporated the elephant and all of his party animal friends. From there, she helped create all of the other coordinating goodies: favor tags, cookie tags, napkins, cups, koozies, water bottle labels, and a large welcome sign. Caroline is always so sweet to go above and beyond to help me make Remy’s parties so special. She did all of these things for his Alligator themed 1st Birthday party last year (see blog post for details). She has lots of invitation designs on her website, but can create custom ones as well. If you are looking for cute party invitations for a birthday, shower, brunch, etc. she has lots to choose from. Not to mention, the most beautiful Christmas cards! Visit her website here: https://sweetcarolinedesigns.com
I knew that I wanted to have the party outdoors, to make it laid back and fun for the kids. We decided to have hamburgers, hot dogs, fruit and fries. Something most people all like, and that was easy. I used Avalon Catering, which is local here to Atlanta. They’ve done several events for us, and I’m always so pleased with their menu selection, service and staff. They really go above and beyond. I wanted to have a little food ‘cart’, and they made that happen perfectly. I didn’t want Justin to have to spend the entire party grilling hamburgers and hot dogs, and with me being 7 months pregnant at the time of the party, I also didn’t want to have to cook a bunch of food. So, this was a win win!
The little popcorn stand was rented through them as well. I just ordered blue and white popcorn boxes to match our colors and Caroline created the cute stickers for them. Sadly, I don’t have a picture of those to share.
I ordered our cake through Suli at Dulce Designs by Suli. She is SO talented as well. She really nailed my inspiration and brought the party animals to life! If you are local to Atlanta, this is her email address: sperry@sabrosaatl.com
I used Balloons Over Atlanta for the balloon arch, the number 2 balloons, and the balloons around the cake. They too, really took my vision to the next level. When I emailed them over the invitation proof, they immediately came up with the idea to tie the little animals to the bottom of the balloons all around the cake. To be honest, I didn’t really know what to expect, or how exactly it was going to look and turn out, but it was great! A crowd pleaser with the kids too. Everyone wanted to take a balloon home with them, which I loved! So, if you need a fun idea for balloons, I think this could be it!
Avalon catering provided the round tables for outside, chairs and all of the table linens. We set everything up outside, and I just had some animal games & puzzles on the tables for the kids to play with. Also, some fun animal ears, but my hopes of getting 15 toddlers to put those on for a group photo didn’t really work out. Haha, but hey, they were cute!
We had two bounce houses and a bubble machine for the kids to play with. I think both kept them all highly entertained, and Remy was LOVING the bubbles so much! I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him so happy, and have such a big grin on his face, as he did that day. He was truly so happy, and it made my mama heart explode. It’s why I planned the party for him, and I know one day he’ll look back at these pictures and see the joy in himself that I saw that day.
For the bounce houses, we actually own them both. We bought the smaller one last year (for Remy’s 1st birthday party), and decided to get a slightly bigger one with balls, because some of the kids were a little older this year. I looked into renting one, but honestly, it was cheaper to just buy this one. I know we’ll use it because we love being in our backyard, and having friends over. I liked this particular one because you can put water in it, so in the summer the kids can slide down into the water. For now we had the balls for them to land in. We pulled out a few other toys of Remy’s, and the kids just had a blast running around. I’ve linked our bounce house, bubble machine, and several other things below.
A few other things that I should note. Our cookie lady, Nancy, is a dear friend of my Mother-in-Laws, and she is located in South Florida. She has been doing cookies for events for me for years and years. Personally, I think her cookies taste the best! Not only can she create anything that I’ve asked her to, she is extremely reasonable, but they are just SO good! They are kind of a staple at any function we have. She will ship them, so if you’re interested, I’m happy to share her contact information. Just leave me a comment below.
The adorable drink stirrers are from Acrylic Sticks. They are such a fun little touch. They too have LOTS of designs on their website, but they were able to work with Caroline and I to re-create the party animal elephant to match the theme.
The favors were fun to do too. I ordered these little animal cups from Oriental Trading, and filled them with animal crackers. The kids loved them as well!
Lastly, I love a good candy bar! I think they make great decoration, but also a fun treat for people to take home. I ordered all of the candy for Remy’s party from Amazon. It ships so fast! I recommend putting the candy bar together early, so that you know if you need more of something. I ordered the little bags for the candy bar on Amazon, and Caroline created the stickers. They matched the ones on the popcorn boxes.
I did the flower arrangements myself. I just picked the flowers up from Trader Joe’s the morning of the shower.
One of my favorite things about entertaining, or party planning in general, is the little details. I think they just make any event so special. So, all of these little touches are really important to me.
I hope some of these sources will be helpful with your next event, or this post gives you inspiration for a toddler birthday party you may be starting to think about.
xx,
Lauren
Photos by Hannah Forsberg
SHOP THE POST
Leave a Reply