Kid's Parties Serenity's Barnyard Dance

Serenity’s first birthday was a blast to plan!  I went with a barnyard theme because her favorite book by far was Barnyard Dance by Sandra Boynton.   

Grandpa Bair encouraged me in all my outrageous plans.  I wanted a barn out of cardboard, so he helped me build it.  He added wood trim and made the roof out of planks of cardboard so it looks so real!  It’s amazing!  And I drew a horse for the back wall so there’s an animal inside.  Serenity loves to crawl inside it already to see the horse and play.  There’s also a shelf for her ducky to sit in the hayloft, but she always wants to get her right out =) 

We used white duct tape for the x's and door trim, and a LOT of coats of red paint.

The little wood trim boards added such great detail, it really looked real!  Also, it still folds flat for easy travel/storage.  Yay free cardboard boxes! 

I had planned to draw a few animals on construction paper as decorations… but Dad thought since I was going to do all that work, it should be more permanent.  So he got big pieces of plywood, painted them white, and then drew scenes from Barnyard Dance on them using his projector.  The first time Serenity saw the cow we did, she went nuts!  She kept saying cow… mooo!  cow… mooo!!!!   

Dad and I built a pond too.  Eric’s family always did fishing for prizes at birthday parties, so we wanted Serenity to get to do that too.  Dad had a big blue tarp, and we cut some of the bamboo out of his backyard to look like weeds around the pond.  He even built a little dock for the kids to stand and fish from.  Eric used another piece of bamboo as a pole.  

Other crafty projects I did for the birthday include making a cupcake tower and a Happy Birthday Serenity sign using scrapbooking paper.  

 

7/11

The day of the party everything went really well!  My sister Jennifer cooked all the food, barbecue to match the theme.  I got teased a lot though for the amount of food that I bought… 22 pounds of brisket…10 pounds of pulled pork… sausage… potato salad…baked beans…deviled eggs… cornbread and a ton of fruit.  Plus ice cream and Aqua and Red velvet cake! The cake was not well decorated, but it was saved by the fact that her fisher price animals looked so cute on it, and the red and blue icing photographed really well =)

There were balloons on every table, weighed down with rocks inside little farm animal boxes.  Red tablecloths, her birthday sign, cupcakes with tower, the barn, and lots of animals dancing around everywhere! 

After a bit of playtime, we performed Barnyard Dance for Serenity!  Daddy always dances for her when we read the book, so we planned to do a big dance for the party.  Lots of people joined in and Serenity was thrilled! 

After this, Eric told the adults they could have a wallet sized picture of Serenity, and the kids could collect their buckets and cowboy hats if they hadn’t already.  The hats were a big hit, and so were the bandannas!  Several of the boys asked to have bandannas tied on their heads or necks.  Raegan was very excited to find a pink pig in her bucket.  In addition to the hats, bandannas, and squishy animals they also got stickers, animal crackers, and goldfish.  With the toys from the fishing game it was perfect!  And it was so adorable watching them run around in the little hats. 

Whew, pretty long post!  Thanks for reading, and I hope it gives somebody some good ideas =)