{race car birthday party}

I wanted to share a few pictures from my son's race car birthday party that we threw for him a while ago.  I planned and organized for weeks, and of course the day of the party I left my good camera at home :( :( So I apologize now that these are all phone pictures, but the party was a huge hit and I wanted to share a few details.  

{homemade piñata with cut up cereal boxes, tissue paper, and glue}

{black plastic table cloth and duct tape to make "streets"} 

I wanted a few car tires for decoration and to create a bean bag toss game, so we called a few tire stores and one of them let us borrow some old tires for free and return them.  The tire store manager was so nice, he even let us borrow a race car tire that I used to prop open the entrance door!

{our church has a pinewood race car track that they let us borrow and the kids could race all of little G's toy cars}

{I love to bake and decorate cakes, and this cake turned out awesome! I bought a checkerboard cake pan set from Michaels and followed the directions so that the cake would look like a race flag on the inside.  And to make the "3" I used two round cakes and buttercream frosting (no fondant required!)}

 {I made my son's piñata last year, and after not finding anything I liked for his party this year, I decided to make it again since I had enough recyclable boxes and leftover tissue paper from the last piñata}

If I've learned anything from it, I think I won't forget my good camera again, haha!  But I would probably consider putting a friend in charge of taking pictures (or hiring a photographer) for the party.  I did a lot of the work for the party on my own (I'm not complaining, I love planning parties!), but pictures would be one less thing for me to stress about doing during the party and are so nice to have when all the food is gone and the decorations have to be taken down.  And no matter the quality or type of camera used, my family and I will always cherish the pictures and memories that we made together.  

Overall, the party was a lot of fun and it turned out great!  I'm a perfectionist and a procrastinator (a tragically flawed personality, right?! Hahaha!), so of course as fate would have it there were things that I wanted to do but didn't have enough time to execute.  But even so, watching my son play with his friends and seeing him have a blast was worth all of the late nights and last minute stress.  He is the only reason for the party, and what matters most is that he has a good time.  

xo, Sara

P.S. If you are planning a race car birthday party, you can find more ideas on my Pinterest board here.