Transportation Birthday Party

My son turned 2 about a month ago, and when I was planning his party, I told myself I was going to go easy.  Nothing too time-consuming, just keep it simple.  I kept telling myself this because last year, for his 1st birthday, I spent a lot of time planning and making food, invitations, etc.  You can see it all here.  Plus, with being pregnant, I have begun to lose my energy.  Being pregnant the first time around was way easier than the second!  Toddlers wear you out.

But in the end, it was worth it.  Seeing the look on Matthew’s face when his party was all about trucks, trains, and cars made me happy.  And celebrating with family and friends made it worth the while.  I found cute invitations from this Etsy shop, and everything was based off it.

For appetizers, I had veggies and dip, along with salsa and chips.  For the “main course,” I made pasta salad, using the wheel-shaped pasta.  (What is the official name of it?)

I also made egg salad sandwiches and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and had them in the shapes of cars.  I found this really cute car cookie cutter and cut out bread using the cutter.

And for dessert, well, you can’t just have one option. :)  I made dirt cake.  You can find the recipe for it here.  I put them in small cups and used a cupcake holder to surround the clear plastic.

I also dipped pretzel sticks in chocolate and labeled it “dip sticks.”  However, I don’t think anyone got my joke.  (It’s on the left-hand side of the picture.)

And finally, I made sugar cookies based off the invitation.  It has been about four months since I had decorated, and not only was I a bit rusty, I forgot how hard circles were!  But they still turned out cute and everyone loved them.  I made lemon sugar cookies and you can find the recipes for that and royal icing here. (Look in the middle of the post.)  You can find tips on sugar cookie decorating here.

Here is each one before I packaged them.

The airplane:

The truck:

The boat:

The car:

All together:

The last thing I did was have my husband create a race track for the kiddos to drive small cars on.  Matthew had a blast and really only wanted to play with the cars and trucks.  Well, until we told him about dessert.  Then he momentarily put the race track on hiatus.

If you have any questions about anything I made, or where I purchased some materials, feel free to email me or leave a message in the comment section.  Enjoy! xoxo