We hosted Noah's first and second birthday parties at home. I enjoyed them, I liked doing them at home. But August is hot in NC and it's hard to contain kids and parents indoors for the duration of the party. It's also a bit stressful for me to have everyone in the house. There's cleaning, cooking, decorating. This year the search was on for another venue. A venue with air conditioning. We decided early on that it would be a farm themed party. Luckily, Maple View Agricultural Education Center at Maple View Dairy Farm fit the bill perfectly. It's a huge air conditioned building, full kitchen, several classrooms, full bathrooms with soap! I found this party to be so low on the stress level, but obviously higher on the cost level.
Everyone's favorite part of this party was the bouncy house set up in the main room. The kids loved it!
We opted out of a class because the kids are three, but Maple View had several options that sounded really fun for an older crowd.
There was also a hay ride out to meet the 350 dairy cows. By the way did you know a cow has to have a calf before it can produce milk? And that a 24 hour old calf drinks 2 quarts of milk twice a day? We also got to bottle feed a little day old calf- so sweet! The hay ride was a bit long for three year olds, but I found all the information fascinating. They have a small barn area where we met the other small animals and a playground that we didn't check out due to the 90 degree day.
Another big hit of the party was Maple View Ice Cream. All the guests got the choice between strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla.
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Luckily, the building is huge because after the cake and ice cream the kids just wanted to run and run and run and play Ring Around the Rosy- so cute!
It was great fun to get everything ready for this party. I worked on it for a few weeks prior to the party during which Noah was having a really rough sleep period. Working on his party stuff helped me mentally keep Noah in a fun place. I was so happy with how everything turned out for this party. So cute! And look out, they might just turn up again for Noah's big 0-4!
One of my favorites was this barn I made. I'm so NOT crafty and this was my crown jewel. The pennant flags... DIE! This may or may not still be displayed in my home.
Speaking of crafty... I used cardboard letters, fabric, and a whole lot of Mod Podge to make the 'N' and 'MOO.' I'm not sure I'll ever do fabric letters again. It was kinda a pain in the ass and I just couldn't get it perfect.
I went all out with the food tent labels (the photos came out a bit bright): pitch fork & shovels (forks & spoons), hay bales (pretzels), chicken feed (Goldfish), apple orchard (loved adding the applesauce pouches!), farmers market, vegetable patch, tractor wheels (oreos), farm fresh milk, water trough, and a hand washing station (hand sanitizer).
How cute are the milk bottles and straws? We bought milk from Maple View (milk from the cows we saw!) and filled them up adding a chalkboard name tag, cow print straws and baker's string. The bottles came with tops and we just closed them up and sent them home with the kids as part of their favors.
Noah very cutely handed out all his favors to his friends, bandana's tied with twine. Inside were farm stickers & farm Wikki Stix, a little farm animal toy, and a farm animal stamp.
This three year old was ready to party, while the rest of us look totally exhausted.
Cake: Mama Corie's Confections
Door Sign/Food Tents/Favor Tags: Etsy Shop The Birthday House
Baskets/Milk Bottles: Etsy Shop Pink Lemonade Party
Favors: Amazon
Plates/Napkins: Amazon
Noah's actual birthday, eating the cake I actually made. We went to Pullen Park to ride the train in the morning, had cake for lunch, and went to Frankie's Fun Park for go-carts and mini-golf in the afternoon all per the birthday boy.
And who doesn't love a side-by-side com
Happy 3rd Birthday Noah!
