Logan's Second Birthday Party: An Outer Space Adventure

Thanks to RJ, Logan is into all things outer space these days, so when he suggested an outer space themed birthday party, we thought that was a great idea.  A runner up idea was "Where the Wild Things Are", but I think we had a lot more options with the space theme.

As usual, I probably went overboard, but it was a LOT of fun and my three weeks of preparations was 110% worth it, since most of the projects were a lot of fun.

As Logan's friends arrived we handed out their Junior Astronaut ID Badges, which I made on the computer and popped into the many id badge holders that I had laying around from Academic conferences.  I LOVE when I can reuse otherwise useless stuff into something fun for the kids!  They were invited to play with the shuttle launch pad on the train table, the homemade outer-space themed felt board (felt thumbtacked to the wall with felt cutouts we made), decorate paper-mache space helmets that we made, draw a space theme with chalk on a black piece of fabric tacked to the wall, play in the cardboard rocket we made, or make their own toilet paper roll/paper towel roll rockets.  There was definitely enough for the 10 kids to do!  They could have gone outside to play with the moon sand and cloud dough, but no one ventured out.  As they played, everyone snacked on veggies and cheese cut into the phases of the moon.

For dinner we had "moon" ball hoagies and "flying saucer" falafels, and sweet potatoes covered in marshmallows (depicting a rocket launch) and two types of coleslaw (we had quite the CSA cabbage bounty - so one was a vinegar based cabbage-apple slaw, and the other was a more traditional cabbage-carrot slaw).  To drink, there was a healthy "tang" concoction, which Lance claimed should have been called "Tang inspired" because it didn't have all the scary chemical ingredients in it, and as such, was not really that Tang-like. It was closer to an orange-ade.  I also made fresh squeezed lemonade since we had a bounty of meyer lemons from our neighbors AND the CSA box.


I lost the most sleep over the space shuttle cake though. It was all chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream filling, covered in loads of thick buttercream frosting!  Logan actually requested chocolate.  He LOVES chocolate! ...and, we're still eating it because I made the damned thing 8 layers tall.  I should've learned from the 8 layer T-rex cake, but I have some sort of confection-related mental illness, where I find the need to keep topping myself.  We've been giving away and sharing what we could and I think the smoke part is going into the freezer in chunks to take out when we get a cake craving.  And, because the cake wasn't enough, I made homemade vanilla ice cream rocket popsicles (really it was an excuse to buy better popsicle making supplies...) and super rich dark chocolate ice cream for the adults.

Logan's friends went home with their space helmets and rockets and their favors: reusable sandwich bags that I made with outer space material filled with a small telescope, stickers, and glow-in-the-dark stars, and a container of homemade moon sand.

Thank you to everyone who came!  We hope everyone had a wonderful time!  We know we did!

Here are more pictures.