birthdays and bikes

Sawyer asked for a Bike birthday party this year.
I worried we were pushing our luck with another outdoor party in November... but we ended up with 80° and sunshine!! Gotta love fall in Nashville. :)

Most of this party was in the details beforehand... I didn't do a whole lot of activities for the actual party because we held the party at a fabulous, close by park under a pavilion right next to the playground, basketball courts, and obviously, the bike paths, so I figured the kids would have plenty to do and want to just be free to ride and play together. 
And I was right. I could barely get them all together for cake! ;)
90% of the time, the kids were all gone with the wind and it was just us adults standing around mingling and snacking.
(And I didn't even get any pictures of Sawyer riding around with his friends!)

So, party details it is...

invites 
(just typed up in word and printed on photo cards)

decor
You can only technically reserve this party pavilion through October at this park... so Ryan camped out there earlier in the day to claim our spot and so he and the kids did most of the decorating... with a garland of twine and construction paper triangles, bike {party} route signs and "racy" tablecloths.

lunch
I went a little crazy with the theme here...

We had a big spread of
veggie HANDLEBARS: carrots and celery in ranch cups
fruity TRAFFIC LIGHTS: (my favorite!): strawberries, pineapple and kiwi skewers


SAFETY CONES: Bugles corn chips ;)
orange TIRES: sliced oranges
pasta WHEELIES: our favorite pepperoni pasta salad w/ the wagon wheel pasta instead of our usual rotini, 

and then we had ham and cheese SPEED BUMPS: simple tortilla roll ups with meat and herbed cream cheese
and cheesy onion bread SPOKES: really just a good excuse to make this yummy bloomin' onion spinoff bread!

we also had mini water and gatorade bottles :)

cake
I went with easy and ordered a plain, frosted cake from Costco... and then we copied the candy bike design here from Family Fun and it turned out super cute!! (I think!)

I did provide a few activities... I knew there were lots of girls coming and I didn't know how anxious they'd be to spend the whole afternoon bike/scooter riding or running around the playground, so I laid out some foam stickers and such and the kids could come by the table and make signs/license plates for their bikes.  It was a good prediction because most of the girls spent a good chunk of time at that table. And some boys too! :)
We also grabbed some free bike safety coloring/activity books from the local police station, and a few of the kids worked on those and/or took them home with them.

Also I grabbed a bunch of those good old fashioned spoke beads you can snap onto your wheels and click around with... those were a big hit with all the kids and they spent a good amount of time snapping those on and trying them out!

For "party favors" I just grabbed aluminum water bottles from the dollar store (which sounds easy enough, but I feel like I drove all over God's green earth to find enough of them!) and we slapped a little tag on them... "thanks for joining me for a WHEELIE good time!!" and everyone took one home.

Also found some fun buttons on Etsy and everyone at the party got one. :)

Other random pics from the party...

the tootsie roll bike tire off the cake!

passing out the cake and ice cream... about the only time I saw some of these kids all afternoon! :)

We had a lot of fun... I was so, so happy it turned out to be such a beautiful day and the kids had a lot of fun playing and celebrating together. 
And other than providing lunch for 40 people, it was a super easy and fun party to plan!

Hope you had a great day Sawyer buddy... sweaty helmet head and all!! :)