I recently shared my inspiration for Miss H’s second birthday party – an indoor picnic theme! I’m happy to say that her party went off incredibly well and we all had a lot of fun! And while we kept everything relatively simple, it still felt like a lot of work to pull everything together!

Mr. H and I were a bit more focused on having a fun day with Miss H and entertaining our guests instead of taking pictures, which means we’re lacking a little bit in the details of the day. Absolutely no regrets on that one!

Décor
We kept things simple – red and white polka dot balloons were a hit with the kids! They had so much fun running around with them.

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We used a red and white checked tablecloth on our dining table and set a vase of white daisies on top. I had a second table cloth that I’d wanted to use as a “picnic blanket” of sorts on our rug, but I’m glad I didn’t. The adults ended up spending most of their time in that area instead of the kids as I’d initially envisioned.

Cake

As I’d shared in my inspiration post, I loved The Partiologist’s “Ants on a Log” cake. It’s so whimsical and fun! However, I did a trial run of the cake a week in advance and was having some issues with the cake cracking when I rolled it. I blame this completely on the fact that my oven has never baked very evenly, and with a cake that is thin and then needs to be rolled, you really can’t over or under bake it or you’ll run into trouble when you go to roll it. Because I was worried about encountering frustrations the night before the party, I decided to change up my plans and do what I knew how to do – a simple 3-layer round cake.

I referenced the resources I used for her cake last year,  except I didn’t go for the whole rainbow this time around! And to save time (last year I took a day off of work for cake baking and party prep), I made the buttercream frosting 3 days ahead of the party, I baked the layers 2 days ahead of the party and wrapped the cooled cake in plastic wrap and put them in the fridge, and the night before the party I assembled the cake and frosted it. With this approach I only worked for about 2 hours on the cake the night before the party.

And while I adored The Partiologist’s fondant ants, I didn’t have it in me to make them to such a great level of detail! So I purchased an ant mold from Molds by Buffy on Etsy and made my ants out of black fondant using that mold. I made the ants a few weeks before the party and let them air dry so they became hard, and made the fondant watermelon and picnic blanket the week before the party, keeping them in a Ziploc bag. An hour before the party, I placed these final fondant details onto the cake.

For a final bit of fun, I dyed the cake batter blue, with the different layers going from light to dark. Miss H’s favorite color is blue and the darkest shade of blue just happens to match the blue on Miss H’s birthday dress!

While it’s not the picture-perfect cake that I had envisioned for the party, it still felt whimsical and fun, matched the picnic theme, and feels at the very least inspired by The Partiologist’s original cake. And, umm, it tasted delicious!

Food
We kept the food prep very, very simple for the party. Since the party started at 3:30pm and guests stayed no later than 6:00pm, we knew we didn’t need a lot of food. But we still wanted to have something more substantial than snack food. We ended up serving:

  • Pulled pork: started that morning in the slow cooker and ready to serve right around when the party started, served with small rolls.
  • Fruit salad: prep was done the morning of the party and we simply had to pull it out of the fridge when we were ready to serve the food. We included pineapple, watermelon, blueberries, strawberries, and grapes (pre-cut in half).
  • Pasta salad: prep was done the morning of the party, and again, we simply had to pull it out of the fridge when we were ready to serve the food. Mr. H combined a few different recipes he found online, but overall we kept it simple – bowtie pasta, black olives, cherry tomatoes, fresh herbs, parmesan.
  • Chips and guacamole: we love to make guacamole but this year we went easy on ourselves and bought some guacamole from the prepared foods aisle.
  • Drinks: we set out bottles of water and cans of sparkling water.
  • For the kids: we had a bowl of goldfish crackers and applesauce squeezies for the kids, both of which are always a hit! And of course, the fruit salad was great for little ones and adults alike.

We set all of the food out on our kitchen counters toward the beginning of the party and people mingled in and out as they pleased.

Favors
I wish I’d gotten a picture of the party favors for the kids, as they turned out very cute! I filled quart-sized berry containers each with a bottle of bubbles, a piece of sidewalk chalk (shaped like an ice cream cone), and a container of homemade play dough.

Gifts
We had decided to ask for no gifts for the party, but if people wanted to bring something we encouraged books. The day after the party when we opened all of the presents, it was amazing to see all of the new books people had lovingly selected for Miss H! Everyone was very creative as well, as everyone brought different books from one another, and we only received a couple of duplicates from what we already had. It was a lot of fun! And with seeing how overwhelming Miss H got just from opening up books, I can’t imagine how it would have been to have her open up a bunch of new toys. She would have been bouncing off the walls!

At the end of it all, we had so much fun on Miss H’s big day! Our big 2-year-old loved running around with balloons, seeing family and friends, and blowing out the candles on her cake!