on your mark, get set- go!

As I have said before Jay is obsessed with cars right now.  He plays with them morning, noon and night and we always have at least a few with us.  So what better theme than cars for Jay’s second party, right?  Right!  While not near as much time went into this party as it did for Jay’s 1st birthday bash, I still had fun coming up with (and finding) ideas for his party.  Here’s a few of the details…

I have been playing around with a program called Artboard lately, it’s a design tool that allows me to make graphics etc. I am by no means great at it but I am really having fun and that is the most important part. The weekend that Jamie was in Jacksonville I put together this invite for his party.

I didn’t put up a whole lot of decorations for this party; however, earlier in the week I did let Jay paint some small wooden cars that we had out on the tables. He also painted and put stickers all over some paper cars that we had (and after the party I used the back of those cars as thank you notes- yay for double duty projects!).

Here’s our “Refueling Station”… we served pulled chicken sandwiches both BBQ and buffalo style from crockpots that we set up in the kitchen (this was super easy and I would recommend it to anyone who would like an easy party meal). Along with the sandwiches we had apple and grape cars, stoplight sugar cookies (this is the best sugar cookie recipe btw), chips, carrots and cake. I baked a vanilla bean cake, frosted it with this delicious buttercream icing recipe and then decorated it like a track. I considered putting some cars on the track but Jamie vetoed that idea and it probably wouldn’t have been a great idea since Jay was within arms reach of the cake.

drinks table- it shows a few of the hand painted car decorations

The only other thing that I did for his party was to make a masking tape racetrack on the office floor (although this wasn’t really done for his party but as rainy day entertainment from earlier in the week-we kept it up for the party) and I built him a cardboard box car. I had seen a Lightning McQueen cardboard box car on pintrest and decided to give it a whirl. I loved how it turned out and Jay has had fun playing with it too.

and yes, the lights really do work- they are tap lights ;)
my favorite photo from the day :)
this is pretty much how Jay looked as soon as his guests arrived... non- stop motion (btw- he is wearing his self decorated birthday hat)
cake! or should I say frosting...

friday phone dump- a lot late

Since I have enjoyed having the opportunity to share all of those random phone photos that I take throughout the week here’s another Friday phone dump… I know it’s almost a week late but there are some really cute ones that I just had to share!

1. Jay checking in on Charlie during his nap

2. sleeping baby

3 & 4 painting decorations for his party

5. finished product

6. about half of the cars that I found in Jay’s bed after his nap

7. one of Jay’s new favorite “hiding” places

8. sleeping baby again

9. sweet boys- a favorite

10. happy boy

11. chubby kitty

12. giraffe lovey

13. tastes better when you wear it

14. thumb sucking success!

15. outside weeding with Mom

16 & 17 duplo, duplo and more duplo

18. happy little boy

19. hiding in a box

20. squishy baby in my carrier

21. the result of captain destructo- I found this after his nap

22. all smiles for the birthday boy at breakfast

23. indoor race track side the weather was less than desirable outside