TJ's 4th Birthday Party- New Holland Tractor Theme!

Hi everyone,

Hope you're all enjoying the bit of nice weather. We were so lucky with the weather for TJ's birthday party. It's so difficult in Ireland to plan outdoor parties as we literally had to wait until the morning of the party to know what the weather would be like. Even if the forecast said it was going to be sunny its difficult to know how windy it would be! I had planned the party for indoors but knew if it was nice enough it could be moved outdoors - which thankfully happened (and my house stayed a lot cleaner which is a big bonus to outdoors parties!)

TJ's 4th Birthday

TJ was very specific about the theme of his party this year, his favourite tractor at the moment is a New Holland, because his Grandad has a one, so that's the party he wanted! Last year he had a general 'farm/cow/tractor party' you can see here.

Basically when I plan a party this is how I break it down:

1. Decorations

So I went with a mainly blue and yellow theme as a New Holland is blue.

I got the balloons in Woodies DIY, they are €3.49 per bundle of 3. I also got the yellow roll of table cloth in Woodies DIY, it was about €10 but I have loads left over.

I got the blue plastic plates, cups and straws in Tescos Ireland. Cards by Eilish printed off New Holland labels that I stuck to the cups, plates and straws.

The yellow sunflowers are from Aldi.

New Holland Tractor Birthday Party Theme

2. Food

As it was TJ's 4th birthday its not quite a 'drop the kids and go' party yet, so there were a good few adults to cater for too. For the adults I just made 2 trays of lasagne that morning and baked potatoes. I had some coleslaw, potato salad, leafy salad and brown bread to go along with it. The lasagne went down a treat for the adults and the older kids.

For the smaller ones I actually just did some sandwiches. I would normally cook nuggets and wedges but I just find so much gets thrown out and its quite time consuming to be watching them and dishing the out during the party where as the trays of sandwiches could be prepared before the party.

I also had fruit cups, I love these, just clear plastic cups filled with a variety of fruit (I used melon, grapes, apples, kiwis, blueberries and strawberries).

And, of course there were lots and lots of sweets and crisps and nibbles...oh and an Irish party would not be complete without an abundance of Rice Krispie buns! 

Also in the food section are the drinks. For the children I bought Fruit Shoots just because they are handy. (tip: if there are small children remove the plastic tops before the party so nobody chokes on them.) We ran out of fruit shoots because it was such a warm day so I had jugs of cordial as back up. For the adults there were minerals, water and of course plenty of tea and coffee!

Food and drinks table

3. Cake

Every year I swear I'm going to buy a cake but most years I end up making one. I know the cakes you can buy these days are amazing but I just can't justify spending 50or 60 euros on one. So this year I really cheated! I made a chocolate biscuit cake, covered it with green roll out icing and bought a small New Holland tractor to put on top of it...ta-da...a New Holland tractor cake, and, he had a new tractor as a bonus!

Cake and personalised t-shirt

4. T-Shirt

I designed the personalised t-shirt in Microsoft word and you print it off on iron transfer paper. When your printing it off though it must be backwards so that when you iron it onto the tshirt it is the right way around. Credit though to my mother and brother and sister, one of them usually take care of this for me!

That's everything covered I think.

The most important thing was that TJ really enjoyed his day, he and his friends played with his new tractor and trailer all afternoon.

If you have any questions left leave a comment and I'll get back to you :)