Fire Truck Birthday Party Ideas

On October 1, 2013, we welcomed our bouncing baby boy, Landon, into the family.  When it came time to plan his newborn session with my sister, I knew that we had to incorporate fire trucks into the mix somehow.  Bob has been a volunteer firefighter for more than half of his life, and so this theme held a lot of symbolism for our family.

A few faves of my hunky fireman with sweet baby Landon –

That first year FLEW BY and before we knew it, the time had come to plan Landon’s 1st birthday party.  Landon’s birthday is just 2 weeks after Lily’s birthday and since she loves fire trucks almost as much as her daddy does, we chose a fire truck birthday party theme for a joint 1st/6th birthday celebration!

Party Colors and Invitations:

I had so much fun planning this big backyard party!  I decided to choose the party invitation first and use the invite to develop a color scheme for decorations and favors.  I purchased the digital invitation from Etsy seller EThree Design Studios.  I actually ended up also purchasing her entire personalized printable party pack.  For just $30, I got the personalized invitation and cupcake toppers, banners, signs and more.  They were all sent in digital files via email and I was free to print and use them – however many I needed.  This worked perfectly!  I had the invites printed by Walmart and printed the other decorations and signs on my printer on heavy cardstock.

The party colors were red, yellow, orange and white… with some black/white chevron stripes making an appearance as well.

The Centerpieces

There’s something so down home, All-American, summery perfection about sunflowers.  I don’t know exactly why, but sunflowers in ball jars always scream summer to me.  So for our party, we made sunflower centerpieces.  We have a family friend who owns a floral shop and she was incredibly awesome and let us purchase 50 sunflowers at her cost – just 50 cents a stem.

The Favors

Our printable party pack from Etsy came with a really cute personalized favor sign.  I printed the sign on cardstock and mounted it on foam board for extra stability.  I took twine and fashioned a hanger.

I purchased black and white chevron striped favor cups from Oriental Trading Company.  From that same website we bought firefighter themed rubber duckies.  Then we shopped US Toy (we have a store local to us but they have a website as well) and picked up some other fire truck themed goodies to stick in the cups.  (These items included pencils with flames on them, fire truck coloring books, firefighter tattoos, fire truck bubbles and candy.)

We had a few party guests in the under-2 crowd.  Their cups were filled with just rubber duckies, not the “big kid” loot.

I put each favor cup into a clear Wilton candy bag and tied the top with ribbon.  The printable party pack had personalized favor tags which looked great.  I printed each kid’s name on an address label and stuck the label to the front of the favor cup.  This helped us to identify the big kid cups from the little kid cups.

The Sweets

Because… what’s a party without sweets, right?  We served cupcakes as our main dessert.  For Landon’s smash cake, he got a giant cupcake cake.  These baked treats were purchased from Kathy’s Just Desserts.  I had a couple of other desserts out on another counter – rice krispie treats and sugar cookies.

I printed out the cupcake toppers that came in our party pack and picked up a circle cutter at Michael’s.  (Though now that I have my Silhouette, next time I’ll use the print and cut feature and let the machine do all the work!)  I purchased Wilton Lollipop Sticks and used scotch tape to affix each circle to a stick.

For the table itself, we used a simple dollar store red tablecloth and added a cute sign.  We also put out some red/white chevron striped napkins.

The Food

Since our party took place in late September, the weather was still nice and warm.  We had gorgeous weather on the day of the party and everyone was able to enjoy a lot of time outside.

For drinks, we set out lemonade, water, soda and juice boxes.

We served sandwich trays from Wegman’s.  They were DELICIOUS!  We ordered a few different trays – some had hoagies while others had wraps.

Everyone loved the sandwiches.  My personal fave was the “kids only” tray that we ordered.  A whole tray with crustless, small triangle sandwiches (PB&J, Fluffer Nutter, ham & cheese, turkey & cheese) with some grapes.

We also served chips, salsa, a veggie platter, warm buffalo chicken dip, deviled eggs, crock pot baked beans and pumpkin dip.

Other Decor

We wanted everyone (well, the adults especially) to have a spot to sit and enjoy their dinner.  We rented some round tables and folding chairs from Good Times Party Rental and that worked out really well.

Bob was able to hang solar lanterns from heavy gauge fishing twine over the patio.  The lanterns added such a pretty touch during the day, and then as the sun set, each lantern lit up.  Spectacular!

I made my own banner image based on the party invitations and ordered it from Vistaprint.  We hung this up on the side of the house.

Another item that came in our personalized party pack was a flag bunting.  I printed this bunting out on cardstock and strung it on black and white twine.  We hung this up inside the house, over the door that lets out onto the patio.

Party Activities

Our party was really very “chill.”  We didn’t go out of our way to organize games or other activities.  The kids were very content running around the backyard and playing on the swingset.

We set up our Little Tikes Bouncer (seriously, best purchase EVER).  We also put a bunch of bubbles and hula hoops (dollar store!) in the yard.  All of those saw a TON of play.

But of course, the MAIN EVENT, was the arrival of the FIRE TRUCK!  The fire truck was a definite crowd pleaser, for both young and old guests!  Check to see if your local fire company makes party appearances.  Some fire stations will also allow parties to be held AT the station itself.  Our fire truck came to the party and we sent a monetary donation in as a thank you.

We purchased fire fighter helmets from US Toy and had the guys hand them out to the kids.  They were a big hit and made for some adorable pictures.

And as for that smash cake?  Little man put a good hurtin’ on it.  :)

We had a blast at the party and the kids had so much fun spending the day with their family and friends.

Of course, after the last gift was opened, it was time to clean everything up.  So the next day, after the last table was stacked and after the last trash bag was tied up, Bob and I had the chance to SIT and catch our breath and enjoy some time together.  That was one of my favorite parts!

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