We reserved a group campsite at South Carlsbad State Beach to celebrate our little man Crosley turning TWO! The location allows up 40 people to camp overnight in what is essentially just an oversized campsite right on the ocean!

We pulled up our Airstream trailer and set up a little canvas tent {linked here} that I’m very excited about using in the future for all our backyard campouts even after the party! My husband and I rehabbed a bike that I found on Craigslist into this cute little ice cream bike which was a BIG hit with the kids and we served all kinds of ice cream & fruit bars. We may rent this out in the future for weddings and I got so many DM’s with confirmation that everyone else is onboard with that idea too ha! We had all the kids bring their scooters and bikes and my nine year daughter headed up the games with the kids including one that she revised and called “Sharks & Minnows”.

I pulled together all the picnic tables that were provided with the site and created one long giant table and lined them with dried palm branches and pineapples and mismatched plates and placemats all in the same neutral color family to create lots of different textures {linked here}. I took some of the shells and beach stones that our kids have collected over the years along with some new ones that I bought (linked here) and placed one on each plate. I was envisioning writing people’s names on them like a place-card and us all sitting at the long table all at once eating together like a scene from Parenthood but lets be real, that isn’t the most feasible at a two year olds birthday party with a bunch of sugared out kiddos haha! So we snacked on pizza and a rainbow fruit & veggie spread and called it good!

The cake smash is always my most favorite part of every birthday, I’m not even sure why exactly but I think it has something to do with watching their reactions and going from so gentle and hesitant to just smashing their face and hands into it. Crosley’s best friend Weston is only 12 days apart from him so he joined in on the last part of the fun and Crosley ended up licking the frosting off of his friends face and it was the highlight of my day.

We ended the night with a glow-in-the-dark scooter parade and smores around the campfire and then my husband set up an outdoor movie for all the older cousin kiddos and we talked around the campfire until 2 am because we are young and free and do what we want!

I’ll link a lot of party products under the “party” category on my amazon list if you guys are interested in anything that I forgot to mention above!

I made these cute little smores favors because some of the kids couldn’t stay until the campfire to use them so I wanted them to still be able to bring them home! I designed my stickers on Photoshop and then got them printed at MOO. I linked the wood baskets on my Amazon List under the “Party” category

Here is a little peek at the Amazon List if you're interested in taking a look!

Parties really showcase the loving armies of people in our lives that come to our rescue to help set up canvas tents and drag 500lb picnic tables around and bring snacks and beautifully decorated cookies and hand you cold drinks as you sweat all traces of makeup off. My tech genius friend fixed my broken camera card so that I could document this special day and then my photographer friends took turns stealing my camera to capture whatever I was too distracted to see. My brother rushed the melting cake to the fridge and my sister-in-law got us early morning coffee and breakfast. As tiring as parties are I do it for all the grubby-faced smiles and happy kids. Happy Birthday (a little early) Crosley Rhodes, you are SO loved.