Happy Birthday to my boy and his Dog Party

Here's my little dog lover. My 'baby' is 4 years old today! Four is always a tough birthday to me. When they officially are no longer a baby or toddler. Just a little kid. Sigh.....it goes so fast!

But we brought his birthday in with a bang on Saturday! A party with a big dog theme going on and plenty of blue (his fav color) to go around. Here's the scoop:

Of course I made him a special shirt. I simply googled dog silhouette images and printed one up to use as a template for this applique and I free hand cut the little ear.

The banner was circles of scrapbooking papers and I used a stencil alphabet set to trace and cut the letters.

Lots of Micah's fav snacks...popcorn, pretzels, homemade granola bars, raisin boxes....

fruit, cheese and baby carrots. Dog bowls from Target dollar section, bone bandanna from Hobby Lobby.

Fun puppy plates and napkins. Sources for plates, napkins, party favors and our homemade invitations in this post.

Everyone took home their own 'doggy bag'. Brown paper bags with window cut in front and cellophane bags inside. Tied with bone ribbon from Hobby Lobby.

Of course there was a doggy cake! This cake was inspired by this cookie. I used 2 heart shaped cake pans. I baked 2 layer chocolate cake in them, then a yellow cake. The chocolate cake is the face with homemade buttercream frosting tinted with a bit of cocoa. The ears are the yellow cake cut in half and frosted with homemade chocolate frosting. Betty Crocker black frosting eyes and nose, fruit leather tongue. This was SOOO simple to make and Micah just loved it!

As the party guests arrived, they got to have their own doggy gear. Dog 'collars' were made from shrinky dinks. I found a bone template online and traced it onto the paper and wrote the names and punched some holes.

Then the dog ears. I used poster board to make headbands and cut dog ears from foam sheets and stapled them to the headband. When the guests arrived I fitted them for the headband and stapled it in the back.

We also painted on dog noses and whisker spots with face paint.

We had retrievers....

Pink poodles and dalmatians.

Then we did a doggy obstacle course. I made cardboard dog 'houses' to crawl through, a cardboard fire hydrant, hoops (hula) to jump through...

and dog chow to eat. I had a few problems that I wanted to stake the houses and fire hydrant down with dowels, but the ground was so hard I just couldn't get them in. So a few adults held the stuff and the kids had fun anyway. I wanted to give them all a 'Best in Show' blue ribbon sticker I made in publisher too, but my printer won't work for some reason.

They all had a blast (though it was insanely hot)...even my biggest kid got into it with all the little kids. :)