Little Jacks just turned 3 and we wanted to make it special. During the whole months of March and April, I agonized about how to accomplish that. Everything felt either overdone or was expensive (and I had no interest in spending a lot of money to make it happen).
We asked LJ what she wanted to do for her birthday and she said, “I want to do it at Montessori School.” That would be fun and easy, but obviously not allowed by school policy. When we asked a second time, she decided that she wanted to “go to the fire station.” I didn’t even know if doing something like that would be possible, but we decided to explore it. What do you know? Fire station tours are a “thing,” and we were allowed to set one up for her party!
We planned to go to the fire station and then have food and cake at the park across the street. Perfect and easy party plan, right? Because it was going to be so low maintenance, I decided that we could have a bigger party. The more, the merrier at the park, after all!
Well, the best laid plans… The day before the party, a storm rolled in. It wasn’t just cloudy and misty, though. It was dumping! We were still pretty convinced that things would clear in time for the festivities, so we tried not to panic. In Utah, the weather changes quickly. But we did clean the house just in case! Saturday dawned dark and rainy, so it was time to enact our plan B. We had to pull off a party of 20 children and their parents in our living room with decorations designed for outdoors.
Luckily, I had the help of Hellobee’s own @Honeybee and her family to help get things ready. We made a cake table, hung a banner and used the balloons that were going to decorate the park inside and outside the house.
I made the banner from fabric strips. I can do a banner tutorial later if people are interested. It was truly the easiest craft I’ve ever done! We got some of those fun stripey paper straws and we were able to reuse some of our wedding glass for sour candy balls. We got an 8 inch cake and about 40 half sized cupcakes. I learned that half sized cupcakes are perfect for cooped up 3 year olds who are already hopped up on a fire station tour and pink lemonade!
Honeybee lined the banister with balloons.
Once we finished setting up, it was time to head to the fire station. We made little flyers that said, “Whoops! We may not be in Seattle, but it sure looks like it today. Please head to our house instead of the park after the tour of the fire station.”
At the fire station, Little Jacks was pretty overwhelmed but really enjoyed sitting in the driver’s seat of the fire engine.
Fire fighters showed us how the trucks work and taught us fire safety!
One of LJ’s very besties! He is so adorable!
After the fire station, it was time for snacks, cake, and cupcakes. We had sandwich fixings, including caprese for the vegetarians, cold cuts for the meat eaters, hummus and pita chips, and fruit salad before cake time. But mostly, the kids were waiting for cake!
Cake surrounded by mini-cupcakes. Look at the laser-like focus on these children!
Party favors were books, Richard Scary’s “Busiest Firefighters Ever,” thanks to @Mrs. High Heels and @Mrs. Owlmom. The picture frame says, “Please take a book for your little firefighter.” We did not want “throw-away” favors!
A word about Little Jacks’ dress. I really wanted a dress that matched the picture on the invitation. (Totally irrational, I know). I picked the invitation because the little girl on it looked like our LJ. I thought it would be fun if she matched!
A sample of the invitation we chose. This little girl looked so much like LJ, I thought.
I found some very cute dresses locally that weren’t an exact match to the invitation but were beautiful. I loved both dresses and couldn’t decide between them, so I polled the hive while I was in the store. I got amazing instant feedback (a testament to the power of this community), but still couldn’t decide, so I brought LJ in to try them on. Unfortunately, she was absolutely swimming in both of them! The 3Ts were falling off her and there was no 2T available. Feeling dejected, I went to the boutique next door to the one we were at (on the recommendation of a local friend) and there was a beautiful Oilily dress that nearly matched the invite perfectly. We were thrilled and got it immediately. Irrational mission accomplished!
And as soon as the party was over, the skies cleared and the sun shown through. It was a perfect metaphor for the age of 3!
And so begins another wonderful year with our wonderful growing girl. Thanks for sharing her day with us.
GOLD / wonderful grape / 20289 posts
What a fun party! You did an amazing job, especially considering all of that set up was so last minute. One of my friends had a fire truck come out to the park for her sons birthday. It rained for them too.
coconut / 8305 posts
I LOVE EVERYTHING!!! What a great improvisation! And I LOVE her dress, it’s adorable on her!
I made a ribbon banner for our Mother’s Day & it was super easy.. you should totally do a tutorial so everyone can share in the ribbon banner fun!
I love the fire station tour idea too b/c that totally fixes the ever dreaded “what are these kids going to do for entertainment” question!
Great job!
pineapple / 12053 posts
how fun! i love the irrational mission and glad it was completed!
nectarine / 2600 posts
Looks great.
clementine / 818 posts
Wow! I’m very impressed with your improptu decorations, looks great! She has the most wonderful smile, I love seeing pictures of your girls!
pomelo / 5178 posts
Yay! Everything really did turn out amazing; you did such a great job for a small budget party! And the fire station was a brilliant move! DD is still talking about it!
blogger / pineapple / 12381 posts
PS: There are two *slight* guest appearances of the Honeybee family in these pictures… Very subtly, though
I think that might be the closest you get to a Honeybee photo!
wonderful pea / 17279 posts
Fun! I especially like the yard full of balloons. Or is that the park?
blogger / pineapple / 12381 posts
@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: That was the plan for the park. We used golf tees to stake down helium filled balloons… but since the park was a soggy mess, we did it in our front yard instead.
pomelo / 5178 posts
@Mrs. Jacks: haha, I noticed that all of us are in those photos! Those are H’s Thomas socks and DH’s pantlegs.
blogger / pineapple / 12381 posts
@Honeybee: It was so tempting to put a photo of your beautiful daughter in there, but I resisted!
@runsyellowlites: I’ll be happy to share. It really is SO easy!
GOLD / nectarine / 2884 posts
LOVE THE BANNER! Love that it is reusable! Stealing this idea for sure!
wonderful pea / 17279 posts
@Mrs. Jacks: golf tees! Stealing that idea.
blogger / pineapple / 12381 posts
@Mrs. Sketchbook: @Mrs. Lemon-Lime: You should steal these ideas! It’s why I shared them
pomelo / 5178 posts
@Mrs. Jacks: lol good work!
hostess / wonderful persimmon / 25556 posts
Oh, I love it. The party looks like it turned out great even with the rain. I am stealing the golf tee balloon idea!
nectarine / 2771 posts
what an awesome party!! and i can’t get over how cute LJ is
honeydew / 7968 posts
Wow, looks like so much fun! Thx for sharing!
GOLD / wonderful pomegranate / 28905 posts
I love how completely awesome, unique but “no muss, no fuss” this party is! Completely attainable for the average HBer.
A fire hall tour is a great bday party idea! Pinning this.
blogger / pineapple / 12381 posts
@yerpie110: thank you
@regberadaisy: Nice way to say it… And we decorated, fed, got favors for 20 kids and 25-30 adults (including lunch) for less than $200.
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21616 posts
aww this is so cute! I totally love the irrational sentiment of matching the invite and dress to LJ! So cute. That dress is ADORABLE!
I love the fabric banner – so fun! I actually made one like that for my mom’s party!
I heard that our local fire station does tours including a ride in the firetruck and I am totally saving that idea for when J is older!
blogger / nectarine / 2600 posts
Awww happy birthday to Little Jacks! Looks like you pulled of a great party for her and love the dress!
pear / 1786 posts
She is adorable and it looks like a wonderful party! I LOVE the books as party favors!
blogger / watermelon / 14218 posts
I have that fabric strip banner pinned on pinterest for LMW’s first birthday!!! I’m going to create it to decorate her room with and use it at her party first… then decorate her room based around the banner! YAY!!!
pomelo / 5820 posts
What a cute party! She is adorable! Glad everything worked out
cantaloupe / 6669 posts
Hold up. You just posted about her second birthday, right?!?!
Anyway – adorable! You know I am Lala’s #1 fan
blogger / nectarine / 2010 posts
I’m totally stealing the whole fire truck idea for a future birthday! And the balloons on the lawn? I’m requesting that for my birthday
coconut / 8681 posts
Sooooooo cute! And I love the new dress! That picture of her outside with the balloons is precious
I think I’m going to copy the book party favors idea!
blogger / eggplant / 11551 posts
Beautiful party!! I love that you matched LJ up with the invite, she really looks so much like that little girl!
grapefruit / 4049 posts
I think this is one of the most fun and adorable parties I’ve seen blogged here! Great job @MrsJacks!
GOLD / wonderful pomegranate / 28905 posts
@Mrs. Jacks: Impressive!
blogger / persimmon / 1398 posts
I LOVE THIS!!! What a fun party!!! I always go overboard here because I cannot help myself… this is a good example that you can pull off a fantastic party AND stay simple!
grapefruit / 4671 posts
Such fun, I love all the balloons! The ones on the bannister are perfect, what colour are they?
blogger / pineapple / 12381 posts
@plantains: The balloon colors are “silk lilac” “silk pink” “satin raspberry” and “real pink”. A little tip is that all the kids wanted to take home a satin raspberry balloon. I would have gotten more of those if I knew!
Here’s the link http://www.zurchers.com/party-supplies/balloons/standard-latex-balloons.html
but ignore the prices as I got them for less than a dollar per balloon, even with the hifloat life extender. I was on a mission to do this inexpensively!
guest
I am planning my boy’s 3y bday in September and would LOVE to do a fire station tour. Did you just ask the one nearest you?
blogger / pineapple / 12381 posts
Christine- we called our city fire department’s “media relations” division and arranged it through them. We did arrange to have it at our closest fire station, though. The Department gives every kid a fire helmet, stickers and temporary tattoos.
grapefruit / 4671 posts
@Mrs. Jacks: ooh, thank you so much, that site is great!
pomegranate / 3225 posts
Beautiful party! Beautiful girl!
GOLD / pineapple / 12662 posts
The pink cowgirl hat and that smile . . . I DIE!
GOLD / pomelo / 5167 posts
aw so sweet. i love the balloons in the lawn.
grapefruit / 4669 posts
I’m in love with that banner and would love a tutorial!
bananas / 9357 posts
I love this! Looks like a great party and I love the pic of the kids staring at the cupcakes. Keeping the fire station tour and book favor idea in the back of my mind for future parties.
blogger / pomegranate / 3300 posts
Great party! I love the fire house idea. I also love the dress that matches the invitations. We are about to get into party planning mode for my twins. They have picked Star Wars. (I see a lot of Star Wars and super hero themes in my future!)
GOLD / wonderful apricot / 22646 posts
Three years old!? HOWWWWWW?!!!!
Happy Birthday Lala!!!!
Great party idea and love the decor!