Flashback Friday, anyone? I’ve had a lot of fun revisiting my son’s third birthday party this morning, marveling at how tiny he used to be and remembering his fascination with tractors and all things on the farm – and just look at those cheeks! 😉
Originally posted on my old blog December 2009
For Tyler’s Third birthday, I decided to go with a farm theme.
The invitations:
To make the invitations, I simply drew a quick barn pattern and cut them out of red cardstock, making sure to cut the opening for the barn doors. The white “trim” is very thin strips of white cardstock. The tricky part was cutting them that thin. Then I just printed out the wording for the inside and attached it to the back.
The decorations:
-barn. Made with a red plastic tablecloth and masking tape.
-fence. We made the fence to go around our Christmas tree when Katy was little. It has served us well (happy to say that with Ty being 3 we no longer require its services for the tree).
-front door was also made to look like a barn door with red plastic and masking tape. I could have picked up some hay from the barn, grabbed an old milk can, picked up some balloons, put out some stuffed animals and really dressed up the porch. But it’s FREEZING outside. And I got lazy. So I just did the door.
-cow. I made this one for one of the games – just used some clipart from the internet as a guide and drew it on a couple pieces of foam core.
-misc barn, animal, tractor toys from Tyler’s collection.
-galvanized buckets to hold art supplies, food (Target dollar section in the summer)
The food:
-pig and chicken cupcakes. I found the idea here. The kids were able to help make these.
-goldfish crackers (because I feel bad feeding them JUST sugar. and Ty likes them)
-chocolate milk
-served on Zoo Animal plates and cups (Walmart, etc). These things are great! I bought 2 packages and split them up with the farm animals for this party and the jungle animals for Kaitlyn’s monkey party. The cups are particularly great for this age because they come with lids so the little ones can’t spill.
-the big cake. My tradition is to use this one for decoration at the kid party then it gets consumed later at the cake/ice cream party with the adults/family. I used the Wilton Animal Crackers pan and just decorated it to look like a cow. (That pan is a great investement. Very versatile) 
The activities:
-made sheep puppets. Internet clipart of a sheep, printed on cardstock and cut out (because half the kids are too young to have scissors skills). The kids glued cotton balls onto them to make them fluffy, then we taped on popsicle stick handles. 
-Find the Animal. Had printed out different animal clipart and hidden them around the room for the kids to find. Then the kids took turns looking at the cards they had found and making the noise for the animals while the rest of the kids guessed what animal it was.
-Egg and Spoon race
-Stick Horse Races 
-Milk the Cow. Attached a latex glove (turns out the ones we had on hand were blue. Oh well) filled with water to the cow and poked a hole in the bottom of the fingers so the kids could “milk” it. 
*you’d think this was enough to keep them busy right? Nope. For some reason we ran through the games much more quickly than I thought. It was ok because we sang Old McDonald a few times, had cupcakes, opened presents, then filled in the extra time with free play. Other fun games could include The Farmer in the Dell (remember that one from elementary school? I thought the kids were a bit young for it here though), milk bottle games (ring toss, or throw a ball and try to knock them over), hide plastic animals in the “hay stack” and have the kids find them. And of course there is always the hay ride, pony ride, animal petting options which we have access to but again, it’s December and COLD.
Party Favors:
-decorated white paper bags with “cow spots” using a Sharpie. Tied them with ribbon and added a tag with each child’s name
-mini farm themed coloring book – found it online but didn’t note where
-mini crayons – picked these up a couple years ago. They’re halloween theme so I just covered it with a picture of a barn
-John Deere tractor fruit snacks
-plastic farm animals – picked them up at the dollar section in Target
Such a fun party for the little ones. And it was relatively easy and inexpensive to put together too – my favorite kind of party. Now I find myself getting a little sentimental and wishing I could go back in time and give that squishy, happy little boy a hug…
Linking to: Frugal Friday, Wow Me Wednesday, Pin Me Linky Party, Lifestyle Link Up, DIY Sunday Showcase, Saturday Sharefest, Link Party Palooza,
alaynascreations 