Cowgirl Party

You're invited...

After our trip out west to cowboy country this summer it seemed fitting for Lexi to have a country birthday party to celebrate year three in honor of her new love.  We transformed our back yard into our very own cowgirl ranch. And the sky God's blessed us with beautiful weather for the event.

The only thing missing from this party was an actual horse.  Since we live so far from real cowboy county, horse and pony rides are hard to come by.  I asked around but unfortunately the few horses that do live in the area are not used for kids birthday parties.  We made the best of it anyway. Instead of pony rides, we played some good 'ole country games.

That's my "Ohhhh, good try" face.

Most often, my girls have two parties... we have our family and cousins over in the evening and then we get up the next morning and do it all again with our friends and those who couldn't make it the night before.  If we had more space I would love to have one big party.  Because our family is our friends and our friends are our family, having everyone we love all together to celebrate would make me happy.

The lack of real life horses did not stop the horse races from happening!  There weren't any bets placed at these Downs and as you can tell from the kids shoes, we live in DAWG/CROC country...a very long way from cowboy country.

Of course I had cute little cowgirl outfits for both my girls to wear but their style is their style and there is no convincing them otherwise.  They both have strong counterwill... the more I want them to wear it, the less likely it's going to happen and that's one horse this mom has given up trying to ride.  The meal, on the other hand, would rock any cowboy's world.  Jon outdid himself with the pulled pork and Lexi's best present of all was fresh corn on the cob hand picked and shipped directly from my BFF's garden!  Baked beans, slaw and watermelon also filled our tin plates for a complete country meal.

I love, love, LOVE paying attention to the details.  It is not work for me to stay up late turning water bottles into Yee-Haw Juice or cutting and pasting labels for Country Loot bags.  I get a rush when one idea leads to another and things all start coming together.  Throw in the challenge of not spending a fortune on a three year old birthday party and you have me in my happy place.

People always ask, "How are your going to top this one?"  I don't have an answer for that because I never think about it.  I just do what I can do with the time that I have and if it so happens that it's just balloons and store bought cupcakes...we'll rock that too.  And the other comment that I often get is, "You should go into business."  But we all know that when your "play" becomes outcome based it turns into work and I don't want anymore work.  And it's probably a good thing that my girls birthdays are six months apart because it gives me a good long time to rest and restore my passion for details.

Happy third birthday party to my little cowgirl.  See y'all next time.

*****

Party Details

Very few party ideas are actually my own. Most are simply recreated from other very creative people.

1. Party invite was made by me at PicMonkey and printed at Wal-Mart.

2. Party decorations and cowboy hats can be found here.

3. Wanted poster printable can be printed from here.

4. Country Cookies recipe is here.

5.  Of course, all ideas and more can be found at a little site called Pinterest!