This little kiddo turned 3 last week, and his obsession with Astronauts and Space were all I needed to pick a theme for his third birthday party and run with it. He is such a sweetheart, and at the same time I’m so sad to see my 2-year-old grow bigger and older, seeing him grow and watching who he is becoming is such a joy in my life. Regardless, I took time the day before he turned 3 to take photos of my favourite parts of his 2-year-old personality, so that I never forget those things. That is, after all, my whole reason for ever taking photos, to remember the sweetest parts of life I would never want to slip away from my memory.
If you’re anything like me, you love looking at the details of people’s parties and sneaking a peek at the way other people decorate, so let’s get started with this cake:
First off, huge thanks to my Mom who came and helped ice the cake to get that smooth finish (which would be impossible for me with my current skill set!). I made this amazing and well proven vanilla cake, without the vanilla beans, and swirled some blue dye through the layers before baking them, because that is James’s favourite colour. The filling between each layer was the filling from this awesome recipe, without adding the flour, paired with this buttercream icing which is one of my all time favourite icing recipes, so fluffy! His face when he saw the cake made all the work worth it, he was so happy!
To make the moon cake topper, I followed this fantastic tutorial. When I tried to leave the spaceship’s trail of gold sprinkles on the side of the cake, I ran into an issue trying to get them on a vertical surface. Finally I figured out that if I wet my finger the sprinkles would stick to it, and then I could press them into the side of the cake. Problem solved!
I searched everywhere to find a large box to make a spaceship out of, but was out of luck. I had popped into Michael’s for a small something and found this cardboard ship staring me in the face when I walked in the door. It was obviously meant to be! So I took it home and added some gold contact paper to it to make it a little more fun.
I’d picked up these vintage posters a year ago at Heritage Park in Calgary, planning on putting them up in the kid’s room. Luckily I remembered I had these tucked away because they were perfect.
I had way too much fun one evening painting styrofoam balls to look like the planets in the solar system, it was a really enjoyable craft and I’m currently trying to figure out where I can relocate it to as decor in the house. If you have any suggestions, pass them along in the comments!
The backdrop we hung in the kitchen was just black kraft paper I taped together and taped up on the wall, then used an old toothbrush to flick on white paint to make it look like a starry sky. I made the balloon garland by following this tutorial and blowing up almost 100 balloons, I may have felt a trifle light-headed after that! The number 3 balloon was from Party City, and added that metallic glint for a space-look (ignore my island pendant light in the middle of the photo).
I left Curtis in charge of the food, with the instructions to make it look “Space-y.” He did a fantastic job by going with a baked potato (space rocks) bar, using chilli, cheese, sour-cream and green onions as the toppings. He also grabbed some pizza, located white pizza boxes and taped the Pizza Planet logo from Toy Story onto the boxes.
The space themed food was quite a hit! And making chilli dogs the next day with leftovers wasn’t bad either.
We played a few games, one of them was making this rocket they can launch off of a straw, and the other game was “Finding the moon rocks,” where we just hid some plastic gems around the house.
Most importantly, James had an incredible time and we are so grateful for all of the family who came and made him feel so loved. He is still talking about the party and all of you!
I still can’t believe he’s three! His enthusiasm for everything in life brings joy to us all, and his love of just being a kid and playing all day is the best. Love you James!
