Animal Birthday Party Details

I don’t know what it is about birthday parties, but I absolutely love them. Now that I am a parent, I always want to go all out and kind of over the top with them because I want to be able to remember every little detail and moment with my child. Yeah, maybe he won’t remember it, but I will and it’s fun to get creative. That being said, this was my first (and probably last) birthday party that I will throw where I get a little crazy with everything.

When Alison, of The Alison Show, released her Party with Alison how-to guide I was so excited and thought that this was going to be the perfect little two year old birthday party. It’s funny because in my head it was such a fun idea. I wanted to do an animal theme party for my son because of his love for animals but I didn’t want it to be cheesy and over the top. I just wanted to keep everything super simple and unique. I wanted to get things for the party that I hadn’t seen anyone else get, but were cute and fit the theme.

How thankful I am for my wife that is the creative guru in our family. She was able to make this fun sign in a frame we got from IKEA that we like to switch out the fabrics every once in awhile. This time she switched it up where she printed the zebra onto the fabric, made him a party hat and added him saying “Happy Birthday” making it unique and personal. She also made some fun pennants that we had all over the house and party hats for our son’s animals.

Let’s talk about invitations. The invitation is going to give the first impression because it’s what everyone coming to the party is going to be getting before they even show up to the party. I wanted to have super cute invitations that let people know that this would be a fun animal party, but didn’t scream generic store bought. Brenda at From Me, With Love hit the nail on the head with these invites we had made. She is amazing and for sure will be going to her for any other invitations or any prints we want to whip up.

My favorite thing for the party were these big balloons from Oh Happy Day Shop. I had seen everyone with the huge latex balloons with their kids holding them in a cute picture and told myself that I had to get those because my son loves balloons and these would blow his mind. They weren’t expensive, but finding a place to fill them up was a struggle. I first called Zurchers Party Supplies and they charge $16 per balloon to fill them up. I had six balloons and that was going to cost me over $90 to just fill them up. That wasn’t going to work. The Dollar Store does balloons, but can’t fill up balloons that aren’t purchased there. Luckily Fresh Market (local grocery store) fills them up for around $0.75-1.25 depending on who does it for you. They were the best and super helpful. Plus, it’s nice to know that you won’t have to spend an arm and a leg just to get your balloons filled up.

Of course, I had to get a picture of my son holding the balloons. He’s two and isn’t going to hold on to them long enough so I needed an idea to keep them held down without looking obvious. Well, I tied them to a sprinkler head and they stayed great. My son was holding the balloons and as I tried to get him to look over for the best picture ever he pulled them down, let go and the strength of the balloons was so powerful that they went up so fast they untied from the sprinkler and blew away. Fortunately I had three more and got them filled up again, but it was at that moment that I realized I was getting out of control and only caring about what my son’s birthday party looked like and not so much what it was for.

No matter what you do it’s all about your kid being happy and enjoying the family and friends there to support them on their day. Will I really never throw an over the top birthday party? Probably not because I love to go over the top, but I will talk to some people and see how they do it so effortlessly and just make it look simple and cute. Alison nails it every time and I am glad I purchased her how-to guide, but clearly practice makes perfect.

Here are more pictures from the party.