HEADS UP! Totally off subject but I am putting an email mailing list together! There will be an annoying pop-up for the next week in the middle of the screen so my apologies if it drives you bonkers but I REALLY think you should pop your email in there….I will be sending out a weekly email update with extra content (BOWER POWER BONUS!) and I don’t want you to miss out! THANK YOU!!!! LOVE YOU GUYS!
My little sweetie is TWO! Can you even believe it!?
I mean, it was just last Wednesday when he was born. At least that is how it feels! And now he is a full-blown mobile, always talking, sweet and rarely sour, and funny little toddler with a big personality and ginger hair that matches his fiery little spirit!
He may be small in size but dude, this kid has been known to beat on his bigger brothers and take on the scariest stunts. Seriously – this one is gonna be the end of me. I just know it. But anyhoo….let’s just celebrate that he has made it two years without breaking any bones! Speaking of bones – he is all paws in for his favorite “movie” – PAW PATROL (or “awp-atrows” as he calls it!) and so we had to throw him a Paw Patrols birthday party!
This was just for family and a friend of LJ’s choice. He of course chose Talia – his 8 year old bestie from church that he LOVES and she is super sweet to him! She calls him “her baby” and he eats that up – following her around and letting her hold him like a baby 🙂
His shirt we found at Party City and he picked the red one with Marshall (the fire dog for those of you who aren’t Paw Patrol regular watchers!).
So for this party, I decided we would set up one table of food and if it didn’t fit on the table – well, it wasn’t gonna be served. This is the absolute best way to limit yourself if you are like me and would make everyone at the party their own menu. The balloons are also from Party City and amazingly – it’s been several weeks and they are still flying high! The wall paws I printed on my big Canon PIXMA printer and cut them out. I put the free printable for these at the end of the post!
For food, we did all themed dog-related food. The menu included Fruity Kibble (fruit salad), Rubble’s Rubble (Peanut M&M’s), Pawtato Chips…
Pupcorn (popcorn), Chew Sticks (pretzels which are in the bottom of the cups – these I got at Walmart and the party blowers I got at Party City)….
Paw-peroni pizza and cupcakes. The little Sky (the pink dog) and the Rubble (the yellow dog) were $5 each at Party City for prizes for the little games.
It’s always a good idea to add height to your party table and this time I did it with a red metal tub that I turned upside down to hoist up the cake plate.
We had our drinks in the kitchen in a big cooler (lay down a bath mat and put the cooler next to it so that people don’t drip on your floor!)…but all the food was in here.
For the party favors I made these dog treat containers and filled them with goodies for the kids.
The dog treat containers were from The Dollar Tree and I stuffed them with Paw Patrol tattoos, candy, a Paw Patrol magic towel (also Dollar Tree) and Scooby snacks (we just said that Scooby was Zuma’s great uncle! ha!).
I made homemade cupcakes for dessert and they were so simple to decorate….just some buttercream icing and an upside down Scooby snack to stick with the dog theme!
The kids were great – Natalia had all the boys rolling 🙂
At first the kids played outside but then it started to rain a little so they came in for a little coloring activity. I got these coloring posters also at the Dollar Tree!
The absolute favorite activity was the one that I least expected. Basically it was a bone race! I had two doggie dishes from the Dollar Tree and I put the Scooby Snack inside it and the kids had to race crawling on their hands to see who could get there first and eat their bone.
Seeing them try to get the bone out was hilarious!
Once it was eaten, they had to pant like a dog to show me their clean mouths. Whoever ate their entire bone (no crumbs in their mouth!) won. It was hilarious to see them go and pant and act like little pups!
Most of the big kids loved the game – the little ones were shy but loved watching 🙂
Even the adults were challenged to see who could wolf down a bone first. Jeremy took on Danny and LJ was their little race master 🙂
They had techniques 🙂 Danny ended up winning and I am sure he is gonna treasure that title forever!
Sweet little LJ really understood the candle thing this year and he didn’t try to eat the cake without hands this time 🙂
SO ready for presents….he is basically begging me with his eyes here…
He got some of the most thoughtful gifts – a little folding chair so that he can sit with his big brothers, a dog kennel with Boo Bower (his first Chow doggie), lots and lots of soft balls, Lil’ Chuck trucks and a wagon from his brothers. He also got his first baseball glove! Now he can play baseball with his “bubbies” in the back yard 🙂
In the end, it was a really fun and low key party and we really enjoyed having everyone come celebrate our big two-year old! You might even say the party was PAW-some 🙂
Oh and I wanted to share some sources with you if you were gonna do a Paw Patrol themed party for your little one! One of the best fonts I found was Grobold (CLICK HERE FOR FREE DOWNLOAD), the blog Delicate Construction has these free printables that I used as food labels and thank you tags – CLICK HERE TO GO THERE.
I formatted them for my big Canon PIXMA printer and so these are the paw prints and the printables with the food labels for 13×19 prints. CLICK ON THE PICTURE BELOW TO DOWNLOAD THE PDF….
And if you are looking for more inexpensive party ideas, check out our past birthday parties by clicking the photos below:
OH LJ is 2 — you are not crazy…It totally does feel like he was born last week! That party looks like so much fun — and the bone race looks like a riot! (especially for Jeremy and Danny!) And, wow do we love Paw Patrol here too…..that is PUP-TASTIC!! 🙂
I hope you post about Will’s birthday weekend ( I know he was super excited about turning 6 — my boy sure was) – I really can’t believe that I have a 6 year old either! And lately, he has been talking about turning 7 in September and all the things he wants for his party! Ummm….hold your horses kid!!
We haven’t done his party yet (we had to postpone because of illness!) so we are gonna probably do it a month late because that is when the weekends are available again 🙂 I will definitely let you know!
xo – kb
Marco’s Pizza! You have excellent taste 😉
I love your party ideas! Sadly every time I see balloons however, I cringe. They are so cute and great for kids but these types of balloons in-particular will be around FOREVER (no wonder they are still going strong) and will never biodegrade. They’ll just join an ocean full of trash left to kill more sea life who mistake balloons and plastic bags for food.
Morbid and certainly not the point of your post, but makes me so sad and if I can shed a little light or get one more person to think about it it can’t hurt.
Stealing all these ideas as my almost two year old is also Paw Patrol obsessed! Sky and “Vev-rest” (Everest) are her favorites 🙂 and a Paw Patrol hat is worn every single day for the last 2 months.
Oh NOO! Sorry to hear about illnesses—-hope everyone is doing better! xo -D
Until seeing this post, I had forgotten how close together all your kids (except Will) are. If you ever want to do a post of mom hacks/how you manage to stay sane/get it all done, etc. I would be all ears. I’ll have three born over the span of 49 months come september and I’m still freaking out a little bit about how I’m going to manage it all, so any pro-tips are appreciated.
LJ literally has a Sky tattoo that will come off his arm and he will FREAK out. I have had to replace it three times 🙂 The boys talk about their favorite pup at dinner EVERY NIGHT 🙂
xo – kb
Thank you 🙂
xo – kb
You can recycle them! I should make a point of that in the post. Our local recycling place takes balloons – latex and those mylar ones too! And we told the boys that we can’t let them go…so they float to our ceiling and live there forever 🙂
xo – kb
You always throw the best parties, Katie! LJ looks like he had a great time. I love his mop of red hair! Curious though, why do you keep his hair longer and the other boys’ hair short?
Paw Patrol seems to be everywhere these days! My niece and nephew are obsessed. Happy birthday LJ!! I can’t believe he’s two already. Looks like he had a great time at his paw-ty!
Evelina @ Fortunate House
I guess I just do the haircut that I think suits them best. Will is old enough where he picks his haircuts but I do like his longer :)….Weston has very coarse hair and it bothers him when it scratches his neck or ears or face so we keep it short….LJ just was born with a lot of hair so I took that as a sign that he was supposed to have it 🙂 We shall see what Max has!
xo – kb
My three year old Grandson is Paw Patrol obsessed! He looks forward to his half hour every day. I wouldn’t be surprised if October’s birthday isn’t Paw Patrol! Thanks for the ideas.
Cute party. Love the pic of the boys and Natalia. And the big boys racing. HA!!
This is fabulous timing! My daughter’s 4th birthday is today & we’re having a Paw Patrol party on Sunday. I’m definitely using your food tags & the doggie race idea. Too CUTE! We are setting up a sugar cookie decorating station in the front room for the kids. I’m making paw print, puppy face & bone shaped cookies for the theme. For our cupcakes, I’m using chocolate (dirt colored) buttercream frosting & 1 large & 2 miniature marshmallows cut in half to make a white paw print on the top. How did people throw parties before Pinterest?
Seems to fit him well! Super cute.
Totally off topic (and possibly really stupid) question…if I already get emails when you put up a new blog post am I on the new email list? Haven’t seen the pop up you mentioned when I access your blog from my phone.
No! That is just to get posts delivered to your inbox….this signup is for a NEWSLETTER. It will have links to the blog content but also contain behind the scenes pics, freebies and bonuses and reminders!
xo – kb