I originally thought we would forgo a birthday party for Little Piñata this year with all the busy things going on in May. The month started off with our trip to Italy, then I was finishing up the school year with all kinds of end of the year events, and we had family that was coming to town. Plus, I had a pretty unusable left hand. So, we thought we would have a little get-together with family the weekend after Little Piñata’s birthday. My grandparents were coming to town, so I thought I would get truck-themed decorations and a truck cake and that would be the extent of the celebration.

But, life always throws unexpected events in your way. My great-grandfather passed away the week before the family get-together, and the services were out of town, so all of the weekend plans got cancelled. Because of this, we opted to move the birthday celebration a week later to Memorial Day Weekend and actually make it more of a party! We quickly made some e-invitations and invited our families (Mr. Piñata’s parents even came down from Chicago for the weekend!) and a few of our closest family friends with kiddos similar in age to Little P.


Opening up some animals!

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Because the event was moved a week later I had a little more time to plan, but I definitely didn’t have enough time to get creative or do anything super original. We kept it all very simple. Since the party was from 4-6pm (between nap and bedtime), we didn’t think serving a full dinner was in order, but we didn’t want to just have cake and ice cream either. So, I made a fruit salad, fresh veggies with dip, Trader Joe’s Meatballs and chips and salsa. It wasn’t anything fancy or theme-related, but enough so that people could eat.


Before all the food had been added to the table

We are grateful for our backyard and nice weather and just hung out back there for the majority of the party. I bought truck plates, hats, napkins and a tablecloth from Party City, along with a big helium balloon of a dump truck that was quite a hit. We borrowed an outdoor folding table and chairs from a neighbor, so we had enough seating for everyone.

We started with snacks and then around 4:45 sang and ate cake and ice cream. Because of Little P’s egg allergy, I ended up just ordering a vegan cake from Whole Foods and they did the truck design to try to match our theme. Making and decorating an egg-free cake was definitely not at the top of my priority list at that point. When they asked me about the flavors, I didn’t even care. As long as there were trucks on the top and no egg inside we were good-to-go in my opinion. But, we went with chocolate cake with vanilla icing. The tablecloth was too long for the table we used, so for favors we wrapped sidewalk chalk and bubbles in the leftover truck-themed tablecloth, which worked perfectly.

In terms of activities, we didn’t really plan any because we knew the adults would enjoy talking and the little kids would enjoy running around the backyard and playing with Little Piñata’s toys. At about 5pm a few people had to leave, so at that point we moved into the gift opening, which was a blast! This birthday was the first time he ever seemed to understand presents and gifts. He got so excited about everything he opened! It was really sweet.


Digging into some cake and ice cream!

I think if we continue to do birthday parties in the future, this is exactly the way we want to do them. We loved that there were just about 15 people total, which was totally manageable to have at our own house, and a fun, but simple way to celebrate Little Piñata on his special day! To me the goal is that he has fun and feels special, and that we are able to celebrate with those closest to us. I don’t have it in me to be super creative, so even though I look kind of enviously at parties with big themes and lots of decorations, I know that it’s just not in the cards for us to do big parties like that.

Have you ever done a simple birthday party? What did you do for food and activities?