Our son celebrated his 5th birthday recently and I am so proud of him! Last year he helped design and plan his party details, this year he did so again and even more details that astounded me!

He first chose his color scheme “all the colors of our pets: black, brown, white, cream, gray, dark orange (rust on our calico cat), and a little bit of blue for Zazzy’s blue eyes.” I have to say, I LOVED his color scheme!

Then he decided his activities. He wanted to make party hats with pet stamps, have a kitten adoption station, pet animals to play with, a pet themed activity book like the one we did for Wesley’s 1st birthday (he LOVED it), a dog bone toss, and a yarn pinata “because cats like to play with yarn balls”!

When it came to the decor, he wanted yarn balls and specified the colors, dog bones, pet “stuffies” and balloons. I took him to the fabric store to look for a table runner that had pet print or designs on it but neither he or I saw anything we liked. Until…we found furry looking fabric and Patrick was in love with the gray! I thought he had a brilliant idea too, then our 4 yards turned into $400 and I gasped! So I told Patrick we’d come up with something similar but way cheaper, he just needed to give me a little time to figure it out. Well, we had to go to Aldi’s next and lo and behold, the Lord happened to have some rugs that looked just like what he found also in gray and so we got two of those that we cut in half for $20 total! He also wanted the kids to have dog bone or cat toy cups, paw print plates and gray napkins. I found the dog bone cups but they had red lids so I spray painted them the color blue shade he chose and I just loved how they turned out. He also wanted the adults to have milk jars since cats love milk. I’m telling you, I’m going to hire this kid for my party business!!

Favors had to include cat socks in addition to the kitten adoption, activity books, dog bone cups and treats in the pinata (me thinks he loves to give as much as his mother…turns out he’s a boy clone of me in a lot of ways)!

He also wanted something for horses and birds because his 2nd cousin was planning on bringing a mini pony and her pet bird (sadly, she couldn’t bring them but she did bring her baby goats)! So I suggested “horse treats” with mini apples and carrot sticks and “bird food” with dried fruit mix which he was totally gung-ho about! Additionally, he requested pretzel rods and watermelon so we turned them into “pet toys: fetch sticks and balls”. And last but not least, he wanted strawberry cupcakes with pet sprinkles (perfectly customized by Sprinkles by Strega), pet themed cookies beautifully made by Anomaly’s and an orange cake made by my mom and then decorated by me (as per our birthday tradition). Although, the decoration I can’t really take credit for either. I had found the cat figurines at a general store that he loved for a cake topper. Plus the #5 candle and my brother made the wood birthday topper. To top it off, he wanted to make sure there was something funny and a dog eating into it with icing on his nose fit the bill.

I love seeing his creativity flourish and giving him the chance to practice event planning and designing just fills me with such delight!

We worked on the kitten adoption station together with paw prints that walked you through it. The first stop was to pick your kitten, fill out the adoption certificate, then moved over to the collar making area with beads and pipe cleaner. Then you picked up your carrier, kibble (mini Cinnamon Crunch cereal), and cat socks. And before you leave, make sure you stop in at the litter box. Though, mostly, the litter box was set up for the little littles to play in while the older ones made collars. Later, they turned it into a dog bone dig when I moved it near the dog bone toss which I actually thought was a great idea I should have thought about before!

And for the main setup and photo backdrop, I used a painters canvas and hot glued milk bones all over it. I also cleaned and repainted the dog house I used for our nephew’s Paw Patrol party so I was excited to get some more use out of it and the tablecloths Patrick chose for last year’s birthday. He clearly has his mother’s taste in blue shade as well! He loved posing in front of it all for his birthday pictures in his “Mommy made birthday shirt” as per our tradition! My sister-in-law has told me that I’ll be making birthday shirts for all the family kids until they are 30 years old haha! It has become a favorite special highlight of their birthdays so I have been on the hunt for a unique way to store all their birthday shirts and hand-painted invitations over the years.

I hope you enjoy our Patrick’s creativity and get ideas for your own Paw-ty!

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