Wheels on the Bus Party

After last years first birthday party which I spent way too much time, money and stress on I said I wanted to keep things more low key this year. Kristian kept reminding me of this and giving me the side-eye everytime I brought up something else I wanted to buy or do for Hunters party. What can I say? When you find a theme and see all the shit on Pinterest for said theme it's hard to reel yourself in. BUT I do think that I kept things a bit on the smaller side this year as far as decorations/DIY/expense. With all that said I don't plan to host another birthday party for him at our house for at least a few years. It's a lot of work no matter how small you go.

Since Hunter is obsessed with buses we had a Wheels on the Bus theme and he loved it. It actually wasn't that hard to pull off and we did most of the setting up the day of during his nap time. We had about 25 people which is a lot for our small house but it was mainly our immediate families and some of Hunters little friends and their parents.

First up the decorations:

I framed the birthday invitation and the cute bus photo I had gotten of him at Chuck E Cheese, placed those and some of his toy buses on the mantle and hung up each of his monthly photos for the past year (I don't plan on taking anymore monthly photos).

 Our invitations were done by Kristen at Little Laws Prints and they were adorable. 

Kristian came up with the idea to make a bus out of some boxes that the kids could play in. It turned out awesome and the kids all got a kick out of playing in it. I also took a black table cloth and painted some white lines on it to look like a road. I put this on our coffee table with some more bus toys and on our cake/dessert table.

The favors were very simple and basic since I made them just for the kids. I ordered a bunch of really tiny metal school buses from Amazon and added those with some bubbles, stickers, markers and candy.

The cake/dessert table was my favorite party. We had a banner made from Little Laws Prints and my future sister-in-law made the bus cake (she also made a firetruck cake to ensure we would have enough for everyone).

The sweets used were based on the Wheels on the Bus song (I can't lie I found this idea on Pinterest). We had donut holes for the wheels, cry baby candies for the baby that goes wah wah wah, chocolate Twizzlers for the wipers that go swish swish.

We also had sugar wafers for the doors that open and close, Bugles for the horn that goes beep beep and chocolate gold coins for the coins that go clink clink. I had ordered cute bus place cards to write what each item was but because of the weather they didn't deliver in time.

For the rest of the food we did basic appetizers, veggie and cheese tray with crackers, pigs in a blanket, meatballs, chicken nuggets etc. Most of the food was eaten.

I got Hunters Bus birthday shirt off of Etsy. He loved it.

Hunter had a great time playing with his little friends. My mom kept commenting on how well he did at the party, he didn't seem shy or fussy. I think the 2 hour nap beforehand helped. 

My friend Kelli brought her 3 year old son and 11 week old daughter so I got to have some baby snuggles. It's amazing how quickly you forget how small they start out as. Surprisingly Hunter didn't get jealous seeing me hold the baby. He came up and wanted to see her but really didn't have much interest. 

We opened gifts which, thanks to Christmas, Hunter is a pro at now. However, one of the first gifts he opened was a truck and he kept wanting to just play with that rather than finish opening everything. 

My mother-in-law painted this amazing little rocking chair for him. She had been working on it since October and the detail she put in it is amazing. Such a great keepsake for him to have.

We then sang and Hunter blew out his candle (with a little help from me).

I was so happy that two of my oldest and dearest friends could make the party. I've been friends with Kelli (on the left) since middle school and Colleen (in the middle) since college.

The party really couldn't have gone any better and the main thing was that Hunter had fun. So much fun in fact that he woke up at 1:30am and puked twice from all the candy and sweets he had eaten. The first time was on me, so that was fun. I guess next year I will try to monitor his sweets intake a little better.