Bixby’s Party: The Big 0-2! With Homemade Play Dough Recipe!

I am finally ready to share some photos from Bixby’s second birthday, which we celebrated a few weeks ago. It was insanely hot. So hot I considered moving the whole thing inside…but after having spent a few hours moving most of our furniture into the backyard, I was not too keen on a change of venue. So we soldiered on, and everyone was a really great sport – and most importantly of all, the birthday boy had an excellent time! The heat and high sun made for really bright, flat light and I didn’t get many good photos. I’m sharing a few of mine here, plus some from Bix’s dear Auntie Amy and Uncle Colin.

A teeny tiny project I was inspired to do at the last minute was to make a few miniature party hats for Bixby’s toy animals. You can see Jordan’s post for more on this, though you hardly need a tutorial or anything! Bixby loved them.

Here we are in one of the few shady spots in our backyard during the festivities. Food and drink was super simple, with little sandwiches, cheeses, a few salads, a huge platter of fruit, iced tea and lemonade.

I forgot to take a picture of the table once everything was outside, but here is a small corner of it. :) We hung Bixby’s bunting across the back of our house and a plain linen tablecloth and grocery store bouquet in a pitcher were the only other adornments. Oh, and a big seashell to keep the napkins from blowing away!

We forgot to buy balloons, so I used Bix’s easel chalkboard to write a note directing party-goers to the backyard. It worked out well, I think! Now if I only had mad chalkboard writing skills like this… ;)

Did I mention it was wicked hot? The water table and hose were big time favorites with the little ones! It just killed me to see Bixby playing alongside his little friends. Last year it was just family at his party, so to me this was a sign of him growing up…even if only a little bit.

We let the chickens free-range during the party, but they pretty much stayed hidden deep under the bushes, trying to keep cool. I snapped this picture after most of the little guests had left. Oh! And the ladies officially have names now: that’s Ginger Rogers in the front, Coco is the black-and-white speckled one, and Bertie the Dirty Birdie is the black one. I had a different vote for Bertie, but Bix loves saying “Bertie the Dirty Birdie!” so it stuck. ;)

Like at last year’s party, I strung up a little clothesline with an assortment of Bixby’s clothes, from wee babe to today. It was so wonderful to get to touch and smell all of those sweet little clothes again.

The homemade play dough I made was definitely a big hit with the little ones. We set up the play dough on a long coffee table covered in white roll paper, and I used pinking shears to cut rectangles of some extra yellow gingham oilcloth I had laying around to use as place mats. I love how the place mats turned out, and they were ridiculously easy! As promised, below you will find the play dough recipe. Feel free to drag and drop it to your desktop if you want to print or save it:

As a former preschool teacher I can tell you this is a good recipe. Most out there tell you to cook the dough in a pot on the stove top, but I find that turns it into an impossibly sticky mess. In this method, you just heat the water on the stove top and then mix it all up in a big bowl. I used food coloring this time, but when I have it I prefer using liquid watercolor – it’s vibrant and comes in beautiful colors. This recipe makes a BIG batch; plenty for a group of kids to play with.

Oh, and the cake! I can’t forget the cake! Auntie Amy made a three-layer yellow cake with chocolate frosting and raspberries on top (Bixby’s favorite!). He L O V E D it. He was the last one still eating.

(photos: Amy Rasmussen, Colin McGovern, & yours truly)