Have a Ball 2nd Birthday Party

Happy Monday!

A week ago my little boy turned 2 and we celebrated the day with family and friends. Around 1 year of age, when he started talking, his first word was "ball." A year later, it's still one of his favorite words and his favorite toys. So it just made sense to have a Ball Themed 2nd Birthday Party.

Throwing a birthday party for my little guy is such a special event for me and so each year we've used his photos as part of the decorations. It's so neat to see how much he's changed over the course of one year.

This was the first year I made a cake for him (last year we did cupcakes) -- or made a cake for anyone for that matter. The only cake I've ever made was in a cake decorating class I took about 8 years ago (eek! that makes me feel old).

We went with a simple round layer cake covered in yummy buttercream icing - and sprinkles, of course - one can never have too many sprinkles.

You can see this philosophy on sprinkles carries over to the dipped oreos too!

The decorations were all do it yourself and pretty simple to make. And I just. love. making them, it makes me excited for his party. I would tell my little guy...

"This is for your birthday party!" (I clap my hands & give a big smile)

He says "par-ee?"

"Yep, for your birthday party! You are going to be a 2 Year Old! Yay!" (more clapping & smiling)

He can sense my excitement. So even though he has no clue what a '2 Year Old' or a 'Birthday Party' are - he's definitely on board.

Just one of the many, many things I love about my sweet boy.

I painted a giant "two" with watercolors and made some pom-pom garland to decorate the serving table. Mike topped it off with a whole bunch of balloons to surprise the birthday boy.

His birthday hat was completed at the last minute and he loved it when he tried it on.

But not so much at the actual birthday party. I guess that's the way it goes when you're two!

All of the food was round-ish, in order to fit with the ball theme and we included some of his photos on the serving table too.

That fancy-shmancy cotton tablecloth actually cost next to nothing. It is from Ethiopia, where Mike and I have both traveled for Mission Trips. We don't get many opportunities to use it, even though it is special to us -- so this blue birthday party was perfect for it.

Each of the kiddos went home with a small favor bag.

I created the little graphic based on the invitation design.

And I just had to share this gift wrap idea. We have some good friends (and neighbors!) that have teens that used to attend our church. They wrapped his gifts in a simple craft paper bag and then added photos of each of them with our little boy. By far the best wrapped gift we've ever received in my opinon! So cool.