A Barnyard Birthday // Celebrating One Year!

Since becoming a Mama four years ago, I realised last night I have thrown seven birthday parties... but this weekend, I got to throw my very first boy party! 

Our little Jo-Jo had a barnyard birthday... and oh! Such a fun theme! I need no excuse to have some fun with a little theme, and the farm was such an easy, fun one to do! The joy of one-year-olds is that they have no "special requests", no random, difficult suggestions ... instead we just went for something fun, colourful and full of creative possibility.

And our little man had a lovely time!

Surrounded by his little friends, and our family, we celebrated one year with our little bundle of fun!

And three generations of men sat and chatted on the swinging seat, while the party got underway!

After a morning of setting up, the threat of rain, and some serious prayer that it would stay away... the dark clouds shifted and we had an afternoon of farm-filled fun in the sunshine!

So here's how we celebrated our Jonas boy in style!

The Grub
A farmyard feast fit for a King, with a little help from Pinterest! Here's what was on the menu...
* Pigs in Blankets (Sausage Rolls) - so much quicker and easier than dozens of sandwiches!
* Chicken Feed (Crisps)
* Fresh Farm Produce (Tomatoes, Carrot Sticks, Cucumber Sticks and Raisins served with humous)
* Tractor Wheels (Jammy Dodgers)
* Barnyard Cake

The Barnyard cake was a simple two tiered Victoria Sponge. I used ready made red Regal Icing to decorate the top tier and created a little barn, and iced the bottom tier with green butter icing. After a rendition of "Happy Birthday," Jonas enjoyed his first taste of cake! There'll be no going back now!

The cake was a hit with his sisters too!

 The Activities
So much fun to be had! I spent Thursday morning drawing a big map of my parents garden and had a blast coming up with lots of different ideas for the different areas...

The main garden area was the "Horse Paddock", with slides, tunnels, stepping stones, rocking horses and hobby horses! A little "adventure playground" fit for exploring.

Behind the "Horse Paddock" was the duck pond! A great deal of fun was had fishing out rubber ducks with the little fishing nets!

Further along was the petting zoo... We made some sensory trays with farm animals galore and plenty of textures and tastes for little hands to explore...

This area was a particular success with the babies...

... and with big sisters too!

Towards the back of the garden, we created a "Barnyard Books" area. I had sourced every farmyard themed book I could get my hands on. A little story corner for a bit of quiet respite!

And of course, no party would be complete with a creative outlet... our "Making Meadow" was a flurry of farmyard sticker activity!

And our little man had a lovely time. He crawled around the garden, exploring all the different activities, utterly clueless that the whole event was in aid of him, but having a blast nonetheless!

Our little Jonas! We hope your enjoyed your Barnyard Birthday!

Now only three more days until you really are one! oh my baby boy... don't go growing up too quickly!