Fall Theme Birthday Party

It’s been over 6 months since we had this Fall party for Beckham’s 2nd birthday.  I LOVED the Baseball themed birthday party we had for his 1st birthday.  It has also been one of my most popular blog posts.  It was a ton of work, but I really enjoy doing that kind of thing.  I wanted to simplify things just a bit this year.  Fall is my favorite season of the year, here in Texas, and since B’s birthday falls in November, it was a perfect theme.  Here’s what we did for his 2nd birthday.  I literally would not have changed anything.

These were the invitations I created for his party.  I came up with the saying so it all rhymed.  The front…

and the back…

I’ll start with the food.  Now, I’m a big time food person and actually consider this one of the most important things at a party.  This is a TON of food, but I couldn’t make up my mind. 🙂

This was the main food area.  We turned our dining room table sideways for more room.  I hate this room every other day of the year, except for days that we host get togethers.  I think it’s a waste of space, but it does come in handy for parties.  This is the CHILI BAR with 2 types of chili, all the fixins, and more munchies.  Details of décor/food are below the pictures.

FOOD LABELS: I made the labels with construction paper and ribbon from Hobby Lobby.  You could easily do the same thing and WRITE the labels instead for ease.

TABLE CLOTH: Found this Fall table cloth at Walmart.  I thought it was going to be too busy, but I ended up LOVING it.

DISHES: I already had all the dishes to serve food in, but Party City is a great place to get inexpensive dishes for serving food/drinks.  The paper plates and fake flowers are from Hobby Lobby.  Such cute chevron for Fall.  Hobby Lobby is the place to go for Fall décor…just make sure to buy it 40-50% off (they always have it on sale).

RECIPES:  Sausage Balls found HERE.  Corn Dip found HERE (Like to serve with Fritos).  Spinach Artichoke Dip found HERE (Like to serve with tortilla chips or Ritz crackers).  Chicken Chili found HERE.  Traditional Chili found HERE (but heated in crock pot).  Cornbread (used Jiffy brand).  Cream Cheese Jelly (just a block of cream cheese and Jalapeno jelly from a jar spread on top…can only ever find at Tom Thumb.  Like to serve with Wheat Thins).

Next up, the DRNKS!  We iced down some water and tea.  I find it easier to have individual drinks people can carry around versus cups you have to fill with ice and such.  I would suggest having a Sharpie to label (we didn’t do that).

We also had a Hot Cocoa Bar and Coffee!  We used the Keurig for the cocoa to make it easy and ensure it was warm when served.  Coffee sat in a warm pot.  Oh and you’ll see a Scentsy warmer with a Fall scent melting away.  It smelled very Fallish in my home!

The DESSERT table!  Last year, I made Beckham’s Baseball cakes and it was the top thing I would have changed.  It ended up being really hard (because I wanted a fruit layer inside).  This year, I decided to go with little bundtinis from Nothing Budnt Cakes.  Best decision ever.  If you have one of these nearby, I highly recommend them.  If not, just find a bakery you like and have cupcakes made.  I chose several different flavors for people to choose from.  Then I made some cupcake toppers to label each one.  They sat on the same table with the Hot Cocoa Bar.

The ENTRY/FAVORS table!  Our entry table pretty much had a lot of the décor you already see, so it was easy.  I chose to get some specialty popcorn from a mom and pop shop in our downtown area to give away as favors…great for both kids and adults as they leave.  To make it more affordable, I bought a BIG bag of Fall colored popcorn (caramel, butter, and cheese) and filled individual bags.  And added a tag that said “Thanks for POPPING by.”

Look who was sneaking in the candy bowl 🙂  The birthday boy!

A fireplace is a great area to add décor if you don’t want to go crazy all over the house.  I chose to do a simple bunting with the birthday boy’s name.  I made this digitally and printed it off on card stock and taped a ribbon to the back (instead of looping through).  Once it’s up, you can’t really tell it’s paper.  I used a burlap background I use often for some of my designs to make it look like real burlap.  The top of the mantle already looked like that for Fall.  The leaf wreath is from Hobby Lobby.  The gold sparkly sticks are from Michaels.

For Beckham’s ONE and TWO year old parties, it mainly consisted of family and close friends, so there were not too many kids there (next year we’ll do something out of the house), but there were a few.  I decided to have a jump house (borrowed from a friend) in the back yard in case kids wanted to jump.  So glad I did!  That’s really where we all congregated to hang out during the party.  The rest of the pictures are of us just enjoying the party.  I do not like to busy myself with “hosting” a party when guests are there.  So my motto on “hosting and preparing” for a party is: “Be a Martha BEFORE the party and a Mary DURING the party.”  This comes from the Bible story of Mary and Martha when Jesus came to visit them.  Martha worried about making sure all was perfect DURING the visit and missed the opportunity to sit with Jesus…Mary, on the other hand, visited with Jesus instead of worrying so much about making sure all was perfect.  Guests feel more comfortable when you are!  You can read the short story HERE.

Beckham thoroughly enjoyed getting the bounce house set up with daddy.

Grampa could only stay a little while, but he came all the way out to our house to say hello and soak up some time with him before many guests arrived!

This is where we interrupted to open presents.  I’m on the fence about opening presents when guests are there.  I think if there are only a handful of presents to open, that’s fine, but I’m not gonna lie, it was kind of chaotic at this point and I felt I lost control, so in the future, I don’t think I’ll open presents until guests leave.

I miss those curls! I used this last picture for our thank you cards.  I added the text using PicMonkey.com and wrote a note on the back of each picture “from Beckham.”