Cowboy Birthday Party: The Decor & Food

We had a joint birthday party this year for our boys since their birthdays are only 2 weeks apart and I didn't have the energy to throw together two birthday parties while toting around a 6 week old. They didn't seem to mind combining the celebrations, though I'm sure that'll change as they get older.

We had a cowboy themed party this year {see last year's construction party here}. We crammed a bunch of friends in our backyard and had a rootin' tootin' good time. First, I'll give you the details on the food and decor.

The guests entered our backyard through our gate. I painted a piece of canvas to make a dude ranch sign.

The kids stopped off at a small table that had cowboy gear for them to grab. The sign says "Git yer gear." I always think dress-up stuff and/or food are the best party favors. I know I don't want another sack of 10 cent toys cluttering up our house so I'm sure our guests don't either. Granted, kids seem to like 10 cent toys so what do I know? Oh, and that sign has a back side that says "Hit the trail." The intention was to flip the sign and lay out the bagged trail mix favors towards the end of the party. Somehow I got distracted and forgot. I didn't realize it until I saw all the trail mix sitting in the dining room later that night. Duh!

We had bales of hay for guests to sit on and The Good Doctor made a pretend bonfire as a centerpiece. I made these WANTED signs out of paper grocery sacks. Aren't our little cowboys cute?
The food was all cowboy-inspired fare.
We went simple with it: chili with fixin's, my mama's cornbread {2 boxes Jiffy mix prepared according to package plus 1 can of creamed corn - yum!}, jalepenos poppers {from The Pioneer Woman's cookbook}, watermelon, chips with salsa, sweet tea, bottles of root beer and horsey cupcakes.The cupcakes were stinkin' cute and an idea I saw here. Check out her blog for better pictures. The sun's glare ruined mine. Boo! As the other blogger noted, they're a little time consuming to make. Thankfully, I had made and frozen the chili and cornbread ahead of time so I wasn't stressed with preparing food and had time for those tedius suckers.
They were a hit with the kids so totally worth the time they took.

Check out these bloggers' great cowboy party ideas:
Elephant Juice
Restless Risa

Their parties were fabulous! I borrowed many of their ideas and found a few more here.I'll share the games and activities in another post.

My, How They Grow!

Do you take monthly pictures of your infant during his/her first year of life? Sadly, I totally dropped the ball on this with Boo. He was my firstborn and I was among the first of my friends to have a baby so I was clueless on the cutesie stuff that people typically do with their infants. With The Noodle I wanted to take a picture of him at each of his month birthdays until he turned one so we could look back and marvel at how he'd grown. And seriously, don't they change so much that first year?! The Good Doctor came up with our monthly picture idea: The Noodle in a bowtie. So we took a picture of him every month wearing a bowtie.
We thought it was adorable.

So for our baby girl, whom we've nicknamed Beans, I decided to make an obnoxiously large flower headband for her to wear in her pictures and "grow into" during her first year. Here's her first month's shot:
She's nearing two months and already she's grown so much. I think taking these pictures is a fun way to hold onto a time in their lives that slips by so quickly.

I've also taken yearly pictures of Boo waking up in his bed on his birthdays. We'll see if I can manage to snap one every year until he's 18. I'm sure he'll be less amused with the idea in a few years. For now he cooperates!

Do you take monthly pictures of your infants or fun yearly pictures of your children? If so, I'd love to hear your ideas.

Catching Up

Wow! We've had a busy couple weeks with family in town, celebrating the boys' birthdays, and starting back up with our school year commitments. Sorry for the silence over here but more posts to come soon!