Army Themed Birthday Party

As I write this post for you guys my heart is still breaking.  Don't make the same mistake I did.  Friends don't let friends take photos without backing them up right after.  This evening I was going to sit down and write up blog posts for Kennedy's Minnie Mouse birthday party and Gavin's Army birthday party.  I grabbed my SD card and discovered that it had broken...yep the internal chip had broken clean in half!  The troubling part is that this tragedy could have been prevented.  The Minnie party photos have been on my card since June and I kept saying I'd move them over to Dropbox later.  Well, later is too late.  I've lost ALL of the photos of the party I worked so hard on and all the photos of her and her friends and tons of family photos and pictures of the kids from when they were babies.  I'm so grateful to social media cause at least I have the one photo from Instagram of her cute smiling face that I had posted.  I did find a couple photos of Gavin's party in an old text message so at least I can share those with you.

I really wish I had all the detail photos for you guys.  I just love how it turned out and Gavin was so excited when he saw it all finished.  My very favorite part of setting up for a party is the big reveal.  I mean, just look at the smile on that face when we were singing Happy Birthday.

Parties are a great time to sneak in a quick family photo.  Everyone is usually showered and dressed and can't wait to break into the candy buffet so it acts as the perfect bribe to hold that smile.  My children apparently think their fingers taste better than candy because they wouldn't take them out of their mouths.

We love the laughing photos better than the posed ones anyways.

This party came together with a relatively small investment.  Thank heaven for the dollar store and their army birthday party stash.  Hobby Lobby also had a great selection as well.

Here is the breakdown of what you see here.

Birthday sign, cut outs, barbed wire, cardboard letters (sponge painted camo), binoculars & dog tags: Hobby Lobby | Brown wrapping paper & helmets: dollar store | long vintage crate: garage sale find

We served red vines (rescue rope), camo chocolate pretzel rods (dynamite), popcorn (army chow), cheese balls (cannon balls), black sixlets (bullets), green gumballs (grenades), root beer candy (ammo), pixie stix (gun powder), gummy army men (green army men) , trail mix (army rations).

My super sweet and amazingly talented friend Lizzie made these sugar cookies.  I found the cookie cutters at Hobby Lobby.  The tank is actually a boat that she added a gun barrel to.

Lizzie also made this tank cake.  How cute is the sugar sand?!  The inside was even camo.  When Gavin said he wanted a tank cake I had no idea how we were going to pull that off, but Lizzie had no problem.  I was just amazed when she dropped it off.

The best part was watching Gavin play with his friends and open presents.  He had a grin from ear to ear the entire day, made all the work totally worth it a hundred times over.

I'm glad I was able to find a couple photos of the party, but incredibly grateful that I could find the photo of our family and the one of me and Gavin below.  It's my favorite!  I love that sweet boy to the moon and back.  We've actually been through hell and back fighting to get him the therapy and assistance he has needed through the years and what a blessing that journey has been.  I am such a better Mom for it and a stronger woman.

Hope you enjoyed the photos and hope it might give you some ideas if you are looking to throw and army party for your little one some time soon.

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