My daughter loves farm animals, so for her second birthday we had a barnyard bash. The invitations, which said: "Baa! Moo! Cocka-doodle-doo! Come to a
party, Phoebe's turning TWO!' and included a darling photo of my daughter in a red cowboy
hat, were printed out on real bandanas. It was pretty easy to do, as I created the invitation on the computer and printed it out on iron-on paper, and then ironed them on to white bandanas with blank centers (purchased at bandanaman.com). I enclosed them in bright green envelopes decorated with farm animal stickers and put them in the mail. The party was held on a real farm that's located near our house. Our picnic site was close to the chicken coop, sheep and pig pens, which was lots of fun for the kids. It was a hot day and I wanted some water activities, so I attached farm animals to sponges and floated them in a big tub filled with water. I also filled white surgical gloves with water, wrote "Moo!" on them and poked holes in the tips. I put them in galvanized tins for "cow milking." We had a simple bbq lunch and for dessert, I made a double-layer 9"x13" cake, frosted it white, and then made a farm on it using small plastic farm animals and fences that I bought at Target for 99 cents a package. I made "dirt" for the pig pen by crushing chocolate cookies and "grass" for the cow pasture with green-colored coconut. I put slivered almonds in the chicken coop. It came out really cute and was actually really easy. At our picnic site there was a circle of hay stacks, so we all went there to sing Old MacDonald, play Ring-Around-the- Rosie and sing Happy Birthday. For goodie bags each child got a colored cowboy hat filled with a farm animal puppet and farm stickers, all labeled with a card wtih their name and a plastic farm animal on it (all of this was bought at Oriental Trading Co). The kids seemed to have a great time, and for the adults it was a nice, relaxing day outside!