The Scoop from The Coop: He Loves *2* Clean!

We officially have a two-year-old, as of a couple weeks ago, and we recently had a belated birthday party for him! Due to his love of vacuums, sweeping, dusting, etc., we (I) decided his party theme should be “cleaning.” Strange, non-traditional, uncommon? Yes. Fun, silly, apropos? Also, yes. ☺ I figured this would likely be the last year I chose his theme, so just thought we'd have some fun with it.

I tried to carefully document the party in order to share it here, for several reasons. I am not sharing this to elicit any comparison, shame, guilt, judgement, whatever... I truly enjoy doing this kind of thing, so while I may lose some sleep in order to put it all together, the creative outlet it allows is life-giving, to me. I totally understand others would rather buy a cake and call it good - totally fine. You do you. The reason I'm sharing is because I spent a lot of time compiling and coming up with the party elements, and if documenting and sharing them means some other mother-of-a-toddler-who-loves-to-clean has to spend less time doing so, it's worth it to me. I've also had several questions about the party, upon me (or guests) telling others about it, so thought I'd try to answer all the questions in one place.

So, here's some "show and tell" for you! Hope you enjoy.

The shirt:

This is one idea I can take credit for (with the help of my Cricut, of course). I'm really glad he was turning two, because I don't know what I would've done with a "3," "4, " "10," or any other number.

He also received a really cute birthday shirt from his Nanny that he got to wear on his actual birthday. The "2" fabric had cleaning supplies on it! So fun.

Shirt courtesy of Nanny (Greatstitch)!

The decorations:

I kept these pretty simple, because we were mostly outside for this celebration. Once again, however, my (generously-gifted-to-me) Cricut came in handy to make some garland (so did an ultra-helpful friend who spent time putting it together for me)! The party hats were leftover from last year, the HBD banner may be as old as I am, the flowers were from a sweet friend a couple weeks ago, and the star lights were a post-4th-of-July clearance find last year, and this seemed like as good a time as any to break them out.

The activities:

One of the first ideas I had for this party was sponge relay races. This one came to me when Menards had a pack of sponges free on rebate. I'd nannied for some kiddos who attended a Montessori preschool and remembered "water transfer" being one of their activities. So, I thought we could do this on a bigger scale and make it a game. With several toddlers involved, it became a free-for-all, of course, but they really got the hang of it and enjoyed it! I wasn't able to get many good pictures of this activity, but they just "transferred water" between the kiddie pool and a couple dish pans - all of which we already had on hand! (We've since played with the sponges in the pool and the bathtub - this one was definitely a "win!")

We also did spray bottle art! I recall seeing spray bottles as part of the decor and/or favors for one of the Pinterest parties I perused. This made me wonder if using them to create artwork was possible, and after some more research, I found a few ways to do so. Because I already had it on hand, I chose to use a hefty dose of coordinating food coloring in each of the colored Dollar Tree spray bottles. Guests created designs with tape, sprayed them with their color(s) of choice, then left them to dry in the sun. The (Amazon) canvases weren't exactly what I'd expected, and the project as a whole didn't go quite as I thought it might (the end results even turned out differently than my example piece - haha), but it was still fun and enjoyable, and they turned out kinda cool!

The favors:

These bunny birthday grahams were the perfect treat to serve as "dust bunnies" in the favor bags! Also, you know I couldn't resist the mini bunny fruit snacks! I think I'd seen a "dust bunnies" label on food in one of the few cleaning/vacuum party listings I found on Pinterest, but it was on something non-bunny-related...maybe cotton candy, or something that looks more like real dust bunnies...? Anyway, I amended the idea a bit. Everyone also got to take home their spray bottle art canvases. I'd intended to send each of the kiddos home with a spray bottle, too, but of course, didn't remember this until after they'd left.

The food:

Again, some of these labels came from Pinterest ideas, and some came from my own head. Mac & Cheese is one of the birthday boy's favorite dishes, so that was the first thing on the menu. I tried a new recipe, and luckily, it was a hit! So thankful for those who helped prep, make, and clean up in this department!

The cake:

This one was also an original idea, but here's why: I was avoiding making a vacuum-shaped cake at all costs. I just didn't want to figure out how to construct it, store it (in summertime), cut/serve it, etc. I know I could have - I just didn't really want to. So, instead, I found a dollhouse miniature Dyson on Etsy (totally worth the few dollars for me to not have to build a vacuum). I didn't know what I was going to do with it till I was literally frosting the cake, when the idea to have it vacuuming crumbs in the shape of a "2" just came to me! The sponge-in-bucket-of-sudsy-water cupcake idea originated when I was looking at the free Menards sponges and realized they looked like Rice Krispie treats. I can't really tell you how I got from that piece of an idea to the end result, though - haha. It just kind-of all came together, and I was really pleased with it! Of course, the birthday boy could've cared less how the cake looked - he would've been thrilled to get to eat cake in any form or fashion - but it was really fun to make this theme cake, even though never did I ever expect to be placing bubble sprinkles with tweezers the night before my child's second birthday party... ☺