2nd Party Animals Birthday Party

Davis loves animals, he always chooses books with animals to read before bed. And some of his first words or mimicked sounds were of animals. So since I completely waited until last minute to plan something for his party, this seemed like an easy and fitting choice. It also was so much fun, and I might have a slight addiction to schleich animal figurines.....

The cute little animal birthday parade printable ended up being my inspiration. It's a free printable found at The Caravan Shoppe, as well as where I got the printables for the poster sized 2 and the "pin the bow tie on the bear" game. I fell in love with the bear print and actually plan to print up another one to frame and put in the boy's room. If I can ever get around to it....

But seriously you guys, this shop has the cutest stuff...I plan on frequenting it during the holidays when I need some inspiration.

My sister made adorable mini party hats!

We served animal trail mix (a mix of animal crackers, nuts, m&m's, choc covered raisins, etc) Fruit/ cheesecake dip, fizzy white grape/lemonade punch--surprisingly different and yummy, and my personal favorite--animal parade cupcakes with white chocolate frosting.

YOU GUYS. These cupcakes turned out better than I thought possible...I secretly hoarded the leftovers and ate them with my coffee for like a week straight.

They had actual chunks of those beloved animal cookies in them! I drooled when I first heard the idea and then adapted one recipe to make my own. I also figured this would be the only opportunity I would have a justifiable reason to bake one of my sons a cupcake that was part pink....it was all for the theme, of course. This is the RECIPE I almost followed, except I omited the sprinkles in the batter and added maybe 1 1/2 cups of cookies to the food processor and roughly broke them up and then just folded those into the batter at the very end. Please, heed the advice and do not use white chocolate chips for the frosting, you need good quality white chocolate (I used lindt) and it made all the difference in the world! ( Davis just pointed to the above photo and said, "I unt oneeeeee" me too my son, me too)

Ok, must change the subject before I throw my boys in the car to go get all the ingredients to make these Right.Now.

Let's talk about the birthday boy. He is just the cutest two-year-old around. He took the whole day in and exhibited nothing but his normal sweetness.

He didn't quite get the whole point of the pin the bow tie game....but that's ok, his cousins and brothers loved it. Naturally.

He also took a moment out of his day to try and morph himself into a smurf.....

chalk.

That's chalk....

Thankfully his Auntie caught him in the act and saved him from a full body chalk down.

He does make a pretty darn cute little smurf....

He's also the cutest little cupcake eater and loves them about as much as his mama. I love the eager beaver anticipation and the sweet encouragement from Bennett as he tried to blow out his candles.

We love having the whole family there. After presents and getting all the kids hyped up on sugar, we were able to take the party outside.

Oh and all the boy's wore their Modern Moses King Judah t-shirts....because you know, it's a lion....with a crown....theme perfected.

Every year I feel like birthday and celebrations just get more and more fun. My boy's truly are such a blessing and I love being able to make a super special day catered just to them. They are blessed to have some amazing family, cousins that are best friends and friends that gather with us to celebrate them.

I'm also realizing that I now need to start letting go of party decorations for 1st and 2nd birthdays as this will be the last time they will be used....not gonna lie....it's hard on this mama's heart. But it's also exciting, I feel like we are entering into this next phase. The phase with more independent little beings, less diaper changes, and a whole lot more brawling and we've added face punching....yeeeeaaaaahhhh, raising boys. They need to make a body armor for that.

Regardless, we love them. And will gladly invite you into our wild circus any day. :)