Home Cooking Mama: Construction Birthday Party!

My oldest son turns 4 today! I can't believe how quickly time has flown.

Kids birthday parties are so much, a lot of work and with a little creativity can be wonderful. I loved looking back at my baby pictures to my 1st birthday and see the AMAZING pink palace birthday cake my mother made and decorated for me from scratch by herself. She out did herself the year my brother wanted cowboys and Indians and she made this awesome chocolate fort. There seems to some special about the little details that made the birthday all the more special.

So when I found out I was expected my first I went and took 2 Wilton Cake Decorating classes. I was determined to give my children that same magical experience. Trust me I will not have my own Ace of Cakes kinda show anytime soon. I get frustrated with details and perfection. Butter cream and I have a love hate relationship and I guess I didn't play with play dough enough as a child to be good with fondant! But I am blessed with an amazing friend that has an amazing touch with butter cream and can make it look fondant, together we make a great team. I'll post a few of our cakes soon.

Anyhow I have always LOVED cupcakes. The perfect portion, your very own little cake to enjoy. When it comes to kids birthday parties they are perfect, you don't have the hassle of cutting a cake and they are just simply cute! So after much debate and trying to figure out what sort of cake do to, as much as I would have loved to have done a 3D bulldozer cake, we just didn't think that would be structurally sound and I'm kind of a stickler for the cake actually tasting good and the two don't always go well together.

So I made chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting. I found the cupcake stand at the party store in the perfect black color and took caution tape to jazz it up a little.

The top cupcake had the 4 candle and then 4 cupcakes with construction cones. The rest of the cupcakes had yellow hard hat picks.

I'll share my cupcake recipe in the next post because it is delicious and my son who refuses to eat cake of any kind actually ate 3 without frosting. The frosting recipe is addictive, it reminds me more of ice cream than butter cream, as my friend's husband will attest to!!!!

As for the menu, the party was between 3 - 5pm so I did snack food. A veggie tray, some fruit (had to do something healthy to counter all the sugar!), chips and dip, Dorritos, Cheezits, tool shaped cookies, Rice Krispie Treats and my sons favorite candy worms.

I also put a pot of chili on the stove because the LSU SEC Championship game was on at the same time so I figured we'd need some post-party/game food.

Decorations wise I had so much fun everything was construction/Caterpillar orientated as per my sons request! I wanted to do something unusual to serve the food so I went to Lowes and Home Depot.

I found quart and gallon size empty paint cans and printed out a cover for them.

I put the tool cookies in my sons tool box.

I used a metal roller paint tray to put the chips and dip.

My friend found some construction themed plates, napkins and cups for $1 each at a party store back in the summer, we knew then we were doing this, so a little forethought and you can find bargains!

But I have to say the best part was the inflatable hammers I found on Oriental Trading Company's website. We adults had a blast with those too. Each child got a cloth Home Depot tool belt and a yellow hard hat (again from Oriental Trading). A big pile of sand in the back yard, some little construction toys and shovels and they kids had a blast. I must thank LSU for the free entertainment for the adults and GEAUX TIGERS, they won!!!!!