You know every parent always says time moves so fast and kids grow too quickly so I'll spare you that and just say time is a thief. I don't know if its because of Covid and the pandemic or what but I feel like when I look at Porter this has been the fastest two years of my life (yet in a lot of ways the slowest). Either way we had the best time celebrating our big two year old dino loving boy last weekend.
Setup:
This boy recently has really become obsessed with dinosaurs, or as he calls them "rawrs". I'm not really even sure how it happened but when I say obsessed I mean OBSESSED. All he wants to wear is dinosaur clothes, he has dinosaur slippers that he has on his feet every waking minute, and he carries dinosaurs around with him everywhere he goes. It was a no brainer to me to have a dinosaur themed party.
In doing some research and prep I found the two-rex theme and ran with it. When I was buying things for the party and setting up he was seriously the happiest kid in the world to be surrounded by all the dinosaurs and he was on all fours roaring at each one as I set up. Seriously made everything worth it to me to see him light up like he did.
Again, like I did with his 1st birthday party (full details here) and Leona's 4th birthday party (full details here) I made his invitations using Canva. If you don't know about this website its a free site where you can design almost anything you want or use 100s of free templates. I always feel like the invitations set the stage so they are important to me to be just right!
Food:
Since Keith is usually the grill/smoker master and cooks delicious food this is something I usually do not have to worry about- thanks babe! But smoking takes time and because of the Packer's schedule (you know you're from Wisconsin when you have to schedule things around football games 🙃) we had to do a party on Saturday which didn't leave any time for smoking.
Instead I opted for an easy crockpot meal and made home made sloppy joes. We also had some sides including veggies with dip, chips, pasta salad, deviled eggs, and a sauerkraut dish and some sides. Like all the other parties I have done, I also made food tent cards (I used the same template I created the last time in Canva and changed up the wording, images, and colors to fit the theme.
The tent cards of course themed read like this:
Carnivore Cave (Sloppy Joes)
Herbivore Valley (Veggies and Pasta)
Brachiosaurus Bites (Chips)
Dinosaur Eggs (Deviled Eggs)
Triceratops Treats (all the sweets!)
Watering Hole (Drinks)
If you don't know this about me... every year I make the kids their cakes and have SO much fun doing it. I am by no means a professional cake decorator but I get ideas from Pinterest and make them my own. This is in my top 3 favorite cakes I've ever made. Each time I do it I get better and better at it too and I learn new tricks as I've been doing them!
This one was an 8 inch four tiered cake. Porter picked (by pointing at the store) chocolate cake and cream cheese frosting! YUM! I added graham cracker spikes (like on a stegosaurus) and of course had to have a "two-rex" on top! I finished it off with a fun number 2 candle. Like every other cake I've done, its my new favorite 😉!
Decor:
This is where I REALLY love planning and executing. If you have seen any of my previous party posts or pictures you know I am a sucker for a good balloon feature (usually a balloon garland). I wanted to do something different this time though.... drumroll please.... enter the balloon volcano and pool float T-rex (wearing a party hat)! I made a fun background and boom decor and a photo spot. Everyone loved it especially P!
I also added some additional fun decor to the food station and as always think a framed invitation is such a cute feature to add to every party! We also did an "adopt a dino" station for kiddos who came to take a dinosaur home with them.
As always I got/get all of my decor from Amazon and the Dollar Tree. A little bit of cash can go a long way in these places. The other thing I've gotten smart with over the years and all the balloons I usually blow up is I invested in a balloon inflater machine. If you do not have one and like to do things like this for parties and your kids its worth every penny and they are also so cheap on Amazon!
Outfits:
This is something we didn't used to do but its been so fun as L has gotten older to include her input on what she wants to wear theme related. Porter's top(s) both came from Old Navy and the rest of ours I made- thanks Cricut! I found some similar designs on Etsy and will link them but I basically used my Cricut Design Studio to find a font I liked for MAMA and DADA and then used clipart to slice out dinosaur shapes! All related but all slightly different and unique to our personalities. I love how you can create almost anything you want design wise with a Cricut machine!
This whole day could not have been more perfect for our dino loving boy. He was so happy and smiling ear to ear all day long. To see him enjoy the day is always something I strive for. I love making my kiddos birthdays special for them! Happiest birthday to my big personality, wild, clown of a boy. You light up our world!
Outfit Details & Links:
Mama Shirt (made) similar here
Dada shirt (made) similar here
Sissy-saurus shirt (made) similar here
P's black dino tee- Old Navy
P's dino long sleeve henley- Old Navy
Backdrop (table cloth)- Dollar Tree
Rawr Balloons- Amazon
Grass Skirt- Hobby Lobby (can find on Amazon or Dollar Tree seasonally)
"2" Balloon- Dollar Tree
Inflatable T-Rex- Amazon
Dinosaur Balloons (4pk)- Amazon
Dinosaur Garland- Dollar Tree
Volcano (made) supplies Amazon brown balloons, long balloons, pump
Faux Palm Leaves- Hobby Lobby
Smaller toy dinosaurs (& Cake Topper)- assorted similar pack here
I hope this gave you some inspiration of your own for a dinosaur (two-rex, or three-rex, or four-rex....) birthday for your little guy or lady!
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xoxo
Maria Elizabeth
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