Lars’ Fire Truck Birthday Party

Lars turns three tomorrow and I’m officially in denial that I have a three year old.  It feels like just last week that I was in labor for three days and bringing home our first squishy newborn. Now he’s a little boy!

It’s been while since we’ve hosted a birthday party, as we kind of skipped a big party last year. We had a big one for Lars’ first birthday because the first birthday is a big one.  But when he turned two he didn’t really know the difference so we had a few mini-celebrations with our friends and family.  This year, however, Lars knew that his birthday meant that he got to have a par-tay.  For months now he’s been asking for a fire truck birthday party.  So, what the birthday boy wants, he gets!

First up, the invitations.  Paperless Post reached out to me at the perfect time to try out their online invitation service.  They have tons and tons of cute invitations and had the perfect fire fighter invitation for the party.

We kept things fairly simple for the decorating and games.  I put out some streamers on one of the tables (which actually ended up being more in the way than anything), didn’t have any balloons, and bought a fire puppy piñata for the kids to break open.  It was actually pretty hilarious watching a bunch of 3 year olds try to break open a piñata – and we didn’t even blindfold them!

We set out a couple of his fire truck toys and then these two bigger fire truck pop ups that he got for his birthday which went along with the theme.  He also got a teeter totter which was fun to watch the kids play around on.

My pride and joy of the party was definitely his fire truck cake.  I found a tutorial on Betty Crocker’s website on making a fire truck from a cake mix that is baked in two loaf pans and I have to say – it was pretty easy to follow.  There was a diagram on how to cut the loaves and assemble them, and very detailed instructions on how to color the frosting and place the decorations.

The only problem that I ran into was that I couldn’t find black licorice for the hose.  Since I had Oreos for the wheels and some black decorating frosting, I just piped a wheel onto an Oreo and stuck it on the side.  Problem, solved.

To top it off, I had Lars put one of his fire puppies on the fire truck.  I think it turned out pretty cute! 

He was pretty excited about it 🙂

To go along with the cake, I made homemade chocolate cupcakes and topped them with yellow and orange buttercream that I piped together and some gold sprinkles to make them look like flames.  I used this recipe for the cupcakes.  

I didn’t have a chance to photograph the other food that I made but I’ll give you the rundown. We smoked 15 lbs of pork shoulder, which we started the night before, and I made a batch of slow cooker taco chicken, both for a taco bar.  To go along with the tacos we had:

Mexican Street Corn Dip

Creamy Cilantro Sauce

Cowboy Caviar Dip

Salsa and Chips

Goldfish

Wine and Beer

Lemon Lime Infused Water

And that’s it!  I tried to keep the food simple and delicious.

It truly was a magical birthday party and I think it was everything Lars had hoped for and more.  He told me this morning he had the “best birthday party” and that next year he wants a garbage truck birthday party.  I’m kind of hoping he changes his mind on that one 😉