Birthday #2

When Cooper's birthday rolled around, it was during a bad week for me. LOTS of stuff going on, and not a lot of time be be all creative with the party theme.

Cooper is O.B.S.E.S.S.E.D. with Cars (with a capital "C"). Lightning Mc*Queen. Finn Mc*Missle. You name it. He loves it.

I liberally feed his obsession because a) I'm a complete sucker for him and b) I might be a recovering Cars-aholic myself. I decline to say more about that, but suffice it to say, the cars don't buy themselves. With Sawyer, my excuse was "potty-training rewards". I have yet to find my excuse for Cooper. Does "I think he's wicked cute so when he asks for something small I can't refuse" count?!?!?

I digress.

On the afternoon before the party and the morning OF the party though, I felt a bit guilty that I had not come up with the personal touches for Cooper's party that I had for Chloe's party. So, I quickly whipped up some things.

And, I was even impressed with myself- maybe I haven't lost my innate ability as a teacher to create something pretty cool out of nothing in a very short period of time. It also helped that I've seen the movie and read the books nothing short of a billion times.

First, I printed the signs I knew I wanted to use off the internet. I have NO idea where I got these pictures. I literally used a search engine to find what I was looking for and printed off what I liked. No time for bookmarking.

I put a sign over the goodies table to make it into "Flo's V8 Cafe". (As you can see, I purchased a banner for Cooper at his request. Have I mentioned I'm a sucker for him?)

On the goodies table, I brought back the apples and dip after it was a huge success at Chloe's party. This was even more popular with the boys I must say! I put some cones from our home-made "Cozy Cone Motel" around it just for fun.

My favorite thing was our "Casa Della Tires" plate. Also a huge hit!

For refreshments, I had two options: Fillmore's Organic "Fuel" (water or juice)..........

 (I got the "fuel" labels at GwynnWassonDesigns on Etsy. I highly recommend her shop. TONS of stuff, well done, quick service, reasonable prices. I literally purchased the labels less than 24 hours before the party and had the bottles totally ready to go 2 hours after purchasing them! Awesome!)

.....OR "Allinol" (soda), the Official Fuel of the World Grand Prix (in Cars 2).

I put the goodie bags in an actual army footlocker that my Father-in-Law has restored for each of the boys with a sign designating it as "Sarge's Surplus Hut".

As an added bonus, I got the Cars Pe*z dispensers for $0.75 each after Christmas! AWESOME!

I set up another coloring station with printables from the official Cars website.

 And, of course, had a place where the boys could all play cars to their heart's content! This was by far the ht of the party!!

As for a cake, Cooper is all about getting the "same thing" as the other two kids. So, he immediately nixed my plans to make special Lightning McQueen cupcakes and instructed me to go to the grocery store and buy a cake "just like Chloe's" (meaning he wanted a store-bought cake form the same place Chloe got hers).  So, this is what he chose:

I guess it saved me time anyway, and it was cute. 

In the end, I was VERY happy with how it all came together, the guests had fun, and Cooper was beaming! It was a wonderful way to celebrate all things Cooper! 

Happy birthday, Buddy! I don't think I'll ever stop praising God for blessing us with you! You are indeed very wonderfully made, and a precious gift from God to our family!