Trent’s 2nd Birthday Dinosaur Party!

When it came time to start thinking of a theme for Trent’s 2nd birthday party, it was actually pretty easy. One of the very first animal sounds Trent knew how to make was a dinosaur roar and it’s so cute, he even puts his hands up and shakes them…he’s a pretty convincing dinosaur.

He already had several dinosaur toys too, so we figured a dinosaur party would be fun to do and he would get a kick out of roaring all day (which he totally did).

We wanted to be much easier on ourselves this year compared to his first birthday. We created a secret, shared Pinterest board with some ideas, but it probably only had 1/3 the amount of pins his secret monster party idea board had. It wasn’t that we were being lazy, but we each picked a couple of things to do and felt like it was the perfect amount.

Let’s start with the invitations. We checked out a few invite sites online and came across this dinosaur invite on Minted.com. Last year, Brett made the entire invitation, but this was too cute to pass up, especially since it would be easier since we were ordering right before our Disney trip in May and wanted to get them out asap. I loved the options for the personalized return address labels, the pre-printed addresses and the dinosaur design on the back.

 

For the outside of the house, we blew up a few of these dinosaur Happy Birthday balloons. I also drew a welcome sign on his chalkboard easel. Usually Brett is the dinosaur artist, but I was so proud of my dinosaur on this sign!

I drew it the night before and Trent wanted to take the chalk and draw too. I felt bad saying no and had to hide the chalkboard in my closet so it wouldn’t get messed up (except I smeared it when I was changing my shirt…way to go mom).

We hung this sign on the front door that we also got from Minted.com in the same design as the invitations.

In the living room, we set up the mantle with letters I painted, two jumbo inflatable dinosaurs and one of our favorite photos of Trent.

The letters were so easy! I just bought cardboard letters from Hobby Lobby and painted them with acrylic paint.

Next to that was our dinosaur photobooth setup! Last year, Brett created two very large, awesome furry monsters, but time got away from us and we didn’t get as many photos as we would have liked. This year, we didn’t get everyone that attended (sorry everyone!) but we got way more than last year…and that makes me happy. Especially since we got some of us!

The dinosaur background and dinosaur masks were from Amazon. I made the prop signs using PicMonkey (stay tuned for a separate post with the downloadable signs) and printed them on thick paper, glued cardboard to the back, and then stuck skewers in the cardboard. I think people had fun with this!

The main focus was the dining room…of course, that’s where the cake is!!

For the wall, we hung plastic tablecloths on a curtain rod with a dinosaur Happy Birthday sign from Amazon, and then some fluffed tissue paper poms in the corners.

Brett made the volcano cake…chocolate cake with homemade chocolate icing. Mmmm. For the lava icing, he used orange and red canned icing dispensers. It was super easy!

My attempt at a dinosaur made of grapes for the fruit tray…was interesting.

Brett said it looked like a horse I guess that’s what happens when you don’t pull up your pinned image from Pinterest as a reference and are making it as people are walking up to the door!

Brett made peanut butter cookies with dinosaur fossil footprints. For some reason, cookies kept disappearing from the tray while we were preparing for the party. I suspect a certain 2 year old was taking advantage of their close proximity to the edge of the table…

We also had tortilla chips with salsa and spinach & artichoke cheese dip.

Brownie brittle.

Lunch was delicious pizza and breadsticks from Marco’s. SO SO SO much easier than last year!! Thank you Marco’s for making it easy for us! Haha.

We also had a salad courtesy of Brett. He makes the best salads.

Sweet tea and lemonade. We’re in the south y’all!

Out on the back porch, we transformed Trent’s rock box into a Dino Dig!

I made the sign using PicMonkey and Brett cut the grass from 2 sheets of green posterboard. I scattered a bunch of mini dinosaurs into the rocks and left out sand-buckets (from the dollar spot in Target) for the kids to search through the rock box for the dinosaurs. At the end of the party, the kids could take home a bucket with some dinosaurs. The kids loved it and I’m sure Trent will still be finding dinosaurs for a few weeks!

Outside, kids enjoyed the pool, along with the purple elephant pool and splash pad. We also brought out the Monster toss from last year!

How awesome is Trent’s shirt?

It says “T-Rexy and I Know It!” We got the dinosaur shirt from Amazon. We originally ordered a 2T but it was too small, so we had to rush to reorder a 3T and I’m so happy they shipped it fast and we got it in time.

He only had it on for about 20 minutes until he ran outside and wanted to play in the water once other kids started showing up, but then he got to wear his new dinosaur swimsuit from Old Navy! Dinosaur everything!

As the host, I felt like I was running around making sure everyone was happy and kept wondering if I should put my swimsuit on and bring Trent in the pool, but he’s kinda off-and-on about the pool. Sometimes he just wants to run around the pool and the grass or sit on the steps and play with toys without them floating away, which is what he was doing this day…sitting on the edge next to people and playing with the water and toys. So, that’s what I left him to do! It was a good opportunity for him to play with other kids and adults, since he doesn’t see them as often.

I thought it was going to be a nightmare taking him away from everyone to come inside and do gifts and cake, but he did so well. To be honest, we were kinda worried since by this time last year, the shyness and tiredness was consuming him and he didn’t even want to touch the cake and presents, but we couldn’t be happier with how well he did this year. He opened all of his gifts on his own and clapped along with everyone when they would clap for him.

He even shared his toys with friends while he was opening them.

More dinosaurs!

He looked like he was trying to read what was on each toy!

Then came the true test of shyness, time to sing happy birthday!

He stood there and watched everyone sing to him and even attempted to blow the candles out himself.

He even decided to give the cake a little taste test before daddy could cut the first piece.

After that, some people headed out and some lingered and it was just a relaxing time. I hope everyone that joined us had a good time and I especially hope Trent had fun, too. We’re so glad he had fun with the theme, roaring whenever someone would ask him what a dinosaur says. Brett’s sister even brought all of Aiden’s old dinosaur toys for him to keep!

If you’re interested in purchasing any of the dinosaur items we used (or need some more ideas too) below is an Amazon widget that includes links to everything to make it easy for you!

 

 

Here are some pinnable images if you’d like to save some ideas to your Pinterest board!