18467

Construction Party -2yr- Caution Tape Streamers

August 2008

Catherine in Augusta, WV, USA

Special Mention

For my son's 2nd birthday, we decided to throw a construction/excavating party because he LOVES tractors, trucks and any earth mover in general. 

For INVITATIONS, I bought a set of 25 note cards from expressionary.com. The front had a really cute drawing of a bulldozer, tow truck, dump truck and loader.  Monogramming was free, so the front said Jack (last name) Excavating."  I printed the details on bright orange paper and glued it inside the card. "Jack's turning two and so come join his work crew!  Please help us build a fun 2nd birthday party.  Report to the job site (our address) Clock in at 3:30 on July 19 Come dressed for some groundbreaking fun.  Jack will dig it if you can come but if your dug in too deep please call the site supervisor (our number)." 

For DECORATIONS I bought some birthday caution tape from birthdaydirect.com and wrapped it around the railings on our porch and put it throughout the house and outside.  We made orange construction signs out of posterboard one said "Caution 2 year old ahead" another said "work zone speed limit 2" and some others that said things like "demolition zone etc.."  We had lots of balloons and a big dump truck balloon on the back of the birthday boy's chair. 

We used yellow tablecloths with black electrical tape to look like construction zone.  I put several small orange construction cones on the tables (4 for a $1 from the dollar tree) and lots of Jack's bulldozers small tonka trucks etc.  We brought down some of his dump truck pictures/decorations from his room too.   I placed lots of his truck books out on the coffee table and had some construction zone garland (birthdaydirect.com) hung on the doorways of our house. 

For ACTIVITIES when the kids arrived they each got their own plastic hard hat (oriental trading) which they decorated with markers.  Then we had purchased a party pack of stepping stone mix (michaels crafts) and the grown up helped each kid mix their cement and put their hand print in the foundation.  These were sticky but cute.  We then played pin the stop sign on the construction sight.  By then the kids (mostly 2 year olds with a few older siblings) were done with structured tasks and went outside to play in our construction yard.  They enjoyed playing with the shovels rakes tractors and trucks in the sandbox in our little pea gravel area under the kids' swing set and in a load of dirt my husband had bought and dumped in the yard. 

The also liked riding my son's little tikes truck dump truck and his new pedal loader tractor with trailer that his grandparents brought for his birthday.  We had saved all our boxes and set up a demolition zone where the kids could stack them up and knock them over with a wrecking ball (a playground ball hung from the drop ceiling in our basement with jumpropes).  We had a cement mixer pinata (amazon.com) and ended with rides on my father's tractor with loader bucket. They loved taking rides and helping drive. 

For FOOD I made sloppy joes served in the back of a dump truck (it looked like dirt) hotdogs/veggiedogs (which some grownups made chili dogs with the two) wagon wheel macaroni and cheese in my crockpot veggies and dip(I put a little "DIP" sign in the dip) wagon wheel pretzels with hummus and cheese dip in the back of two littler dump trucks and fruit salad.

The CAKE was so easy.  I made chocolate cupcakes without the paper placed them in the back of a new dump truck melted chocolate icing (30% power 30 seconds) poured on top the first layer and crumble oreos on top of that.  I layered this 2 more times to fill the truck.  I placed long candles on top when it was time for the birthday boy to make a wish.  We wrapped orange paper around sugar ice cream cones secured it with white masking tape and sat them upside down on a tray (they looked just like construction cones) if the kids wanted ice cream too we filled the cones with rocky road of course. 

For FAVORS the kids had their hat stepping stone candy from the pinata plus I bought pre-made "work zone favor boxes" from oriental trading.  They were filled with a little truck blow up hammer construction pig work zone bracelet and some other stuff.  For the grandparents babysitter and other grown ups we gave a bottle of "RED TRUCK" or "WHITE TRUCK" wine found at our grocery store.  The party was so fun and a GREAT time was had by all especially the BIRTHDAY BOY!! "

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