Secret Life of Pets Birthday Party!

Wow! I cannot believe my baby turned two!! These past two years have seriously gone by in a blink of an eye and it has reminded me how important it is to slow down and enjoy all the little moments. This year, I gave Camden a few ideas for his birthday party theme and he 100% jumped on a Secret Life of Pets party.

The Backstory: We started doing movie night with Ava on Fridays probably about a year or so ago. If you are a Mom of a toddler then you know this struggle. Ya know, when your kid gets obsessed with one movie and you have to watch it over and over again until you know every word by heart. We were on that struggle bus with Cinderella so we begged Ava to watch Secret Life of Pets. Well, somewhere in watching that movie a thousand times we started to let Camden stay up for movie night and he soon became more obsessed than Ava. I mean, how can you not love Max and Duke?

The Party: How adorable is this Banner?! I got it on Etsy for $8 and printed it at home then cut it and put it together. Super easy, affordable and cute! It may or may not have stayed up for over a week. His cute shirt is also from Etsy and was on sale for $15! The rest of the decorations, I got at Party City on CLEARANCE for $1 each. The Secret Life of Pets Balloon, Plates, Napkins, Party Hats and Temporary Tattoos all came from Party City totaling $7.

We had some family in town for his party, but we were able to keep the cost under $125.

The Food: Food is always the hardest part for me when it comes to having a party that involves other people. For us, we are used to our allergy free food life, but when having guests I always like to make sure we have something for them to enjoy as well. I am not usually a catering type of girl because I love to cook and plan meals, BUT since this day is all about little man we got Chick-fil-a for him. Like everyone else in the world, he loves Chick-fil-a and I love that they don't use soybean oil for frying(they do use peanut oil, so not good if you have a peanut allergy)! Both my kids can eat their grilled nuggets and fries! We got a small grilled chicken nugget platter, 8 large fries and a small chicken sandwich platter(for the adults who can't live off nuggets like me). This was one of the larger expenses for the party, it cost $70. It felt a little over priced especially since it really wasn't THAT much food, but we had leftovers and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Other food included a homemade fruit salad with Strawberries, Cantaloupe, Watermelon and Blueberries and homemade popcorn mixed with Snyder's Gluten Free Pretzels and Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips.

Let's talk the important stuff now ... the cupcakes! This gave me anxiety! We ALWAYS, ALWAYS get our cupcakes from a place called Gluten Free Cutie in Roswell, GA. They have the best tasting and most reasonably priced GF/DF/SF cupcakes. When I called to place the order, they informed me they were closed for that whole week when we would need the cupcakes. I immediately started calling around to other bakeries, but everywhere I called it would have cost me $50+ for a dozen cupcakes. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! I decided to just make them myself with a boxed brand (insert dramatic music: dun dun dunnn). I am NOT a boxed baked goods fan, but I knew I just didn't have time to get a recipe down that I loved before the party! We used the Simple Mills Vanilla Cupcake & Cake Mix and the Simple Mills Chocolate Frosting. The cupcake mix was really watery when I made it, but they came out great. It didn't have that super vanilla taste, but it was still good!

The cute cupcake toppers were a free printable from here. I printed them out at home, cut them and attached them to a toothpick.

We had a great day with family celebrating our fun loving little man. Do you prefer a birthday party at home or renting out a place? I would love to hear your family's birthday traditions in the comments below!

Happy Birthday Camden!

Laura

xoxxo