Construction Themed Party

As promised here are the details to Baby Fox's 1/2 birthday construction themed birthday party.

When I picked the construction theme for Baby Fox's party, it didn't dawn on me how hard it was going to be to find things to fit the theme. I searched Party City, nothing, which meant I was going to have to make stuff and scour the internet. I found some cute things on Etsy, but they were printables, which is great, but I didn't really want to use that much ink from my printer. But on Amazon you can buy some signs, but I knew I wanted a lot, so I wanted a cheaper option. So I decided to make all of my own signs.

I made all the signs using my Cricut, if you don't have one, go get one now! It saved me money on this party big time! I'm going to go ahead and assume this baby is going to save me some more down the road.
I bought some silk type ribbon to string up the banner, and some painters tape to stick it to the wall.

 Sticking with our taco theme, the two orange signs say "Taco Construction" and "Nacho Building"

I bought some caution tape from Home Depot for $6. The orange sign says "Mouths Loading"

 

Yes we alternated the orange and yellow napkins by hand, it didn't come that way.

Close up of the "tools". If anyone wants the Word document I made to make the "tools" tags, shoot me an email, I'll send it to you.

Being 31 weeks pregnant we decided to go easy with the food and get tacos from a local place. We got pork carnitas, chicken and beans, a can of nacho cheese and chips so people could make supreme nachos or tacos, totally easy, I highly reccomend it. 

I took this picture before the guacamole and sour cream were put in the bowls

The signs are held up by wrapping  few small square boxes with a slit in them. I also figured that not all kids were going to like tacos, so we did have hotdogs available for the kids, along with that gorgeous fruit display. All the fruit was gone by the end of the party. 

 
*Tip - Party City sells those black tongs and spoons for very little. Go get them, they're washable and you can take them to the next potluck and not have to worry about getting them back.

I forgot to take a picture of where we put the part favors.

I had two different favors. I bought these construction duckies, for the smaller kids coming, and I bought the little dinosaur toys from the $1 bin at Target, even though it was $3 for 4.

For the older kids I bought this poster with the below tag attached. And then I bought some crayons from Big Lots and put them in it's own little bag with a Thank You tag. Those little construction pictures on the bottom, I got from this free printable. I actually used Photoshop Elements to put everything together, but the pictures came from that printable.

I bought some clear plastic bags from Micheal's for $2 ish  (using my 40% off coupon), then made these tags and stapled the goodies inside. Looked like I bought it like that, but nope, I made them.

Let's move onto the drink table. I unfortunately don't have any close ups. But the "Birthday Zone" tape was bought off of amazon. I bought that little orange bucket with the Gold Fish at Hobby Lobby for $3. I bought a bigger orange oval bucket that was holding the thank you toys in it for $6 at Hobby Lobby.

The wheel barrel holding the Capri Sun was bought from Big Lots for $5. There was ice/water in there, but you can't really see it in this picture.

Some of the signs I made I ended up buying some wood stakes at Home Depot (I think it was 12 for $6).

 Since it was a swim party, I made signs that said "Caution Kids Swimming" and "No Life Guard on Duty"

There was more signs I made that were out front, but I completely forgot to take pictures. I made a sign that was about 12 x 20 that had an arrow and said "Party in Progress" and 12x12 "Kids Zone"

And no party would be complete without cake right?

I decided since it was a half birthday I would make half of a birthday cake and then with the left over cake batter I made some cupcakes so there would be enough for everyone. I wanted to try and get the dump truck to look like it was dumping out cupcakes, but it didn't workout.

A friend bought some construction candles from a bakery shop. I used crushed up Oreo's for the "dirt".

*Tip - Put Oreos in baggie, use rolling pin to roll the heck out of the suckers. You basically have to keep rolling until all of the cream in the cookie gets absorbed into the cookie. I used a sandwich baggie, but I should have used a bigger one, made it harder to really get things combined.

And all of this made many happy and full guests.

And a very happy 1/2 Birthday boy!

Now you have all the ingredients for a great construction themed birthday party! Hope you have as much fun planning as I did!

Mexican Pulled Pork (Carnitas)

Happy Friday everyone! TGIF! Here's the last recipe for the week, so enjoy!

This recipe is really easy too, okay it has a lot of steps, but it really isn't that hard, and it's SOOO good! Definitely a crowd pleaser. Without further ado:

Ingredients:

• 1 3.5-4 pound boneless pork butt, fat cap trimmed to 1/8 inch thick, cut into 2 inch chunks

• Table salt and ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 small onion, peeled and halved
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspon dried oregano
• 2 tablespoons juice from 1 lime
• 2 cups water
• 1 medium orange

Garnishes (suggestions)

• Tortillas
• Lime Wedges
• Mince white or red onion
• Fresh cilantro leaves
• Thinly sliced radishes
• Sour cream
• Salsa
• Guacamole

Cooking Supplies You'll Need

• Large Dutch Oven
• Cookie Sheet with a cookie cooling rack that fits in it
• Slotted Spoon
• Spatula
• Knife
• Cutting Board
  

Advice: I will typically make a double batch, since you're going through all this trouble might as well make extra and freeze some. So I'll use about 7-8 pounds of meat. Then just double all of the other ingredients.

 Instructions:

Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 300 degrees. 

1. Combine pork, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, cumin, onion, bay leaves, oregano, lime juice, and water in large Dutch oven (liquid should just barely cover meat). 

     2.  Juice orange into medium bowl and remove any seeds (you should have about 1/3 cup juice).
          Add juice and spent orange halves to pot. 

     3.  Bring mixture to simmer over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally. 

     4.  Once simmering cover pot and transfer to oven;  

     5. Cook until meat is soft and falls apart when prodded with fork, about 2 hours (the recipe calls
         for 2 hours, I typically will do 3 hours, we find that it turns out a little bit better, but if you're
         pressed for time, 2 hours is good too), flipping pieces of meat once during cooking.

     6. Remove pot from oven and turn oven to broil. 

     7. Using slotted spoon, transfer pork to bowl; remove orange halves, onion, and bay leaves from
           cooking liquid and discard (do not skim fat from liquid).

     8. If you are making a double batch, I pour half the liquid into another pot and do this in two
          pots, makes for more sauce. Place pot over high heat (use caution, as handles will be very hot)
         and simmer liquid, stirring frequently, until thick and syrupy (heatsafe spatula should leave
         wide trail when dragged through glaze), 15 minutes or so. You should have about 1 cup reduced
         liquid. 

 

  10.  Using 2 forks, pull each piece of pork in half. Fold in reduced liquid; season with salt and

         pepper to taste. I don't pull each piece apart into 1 inch chunks, I personally don't like making

         tacos with such large pieces of meat, as you can see from the picture, some are in chunks and

        others are shredded, do what works for you.

   11.  Spread pork in even layer on wire rack set inside rimmed baking sheet or on broiler pan 

       (meat should cover almost entire surface of rack or broiler pan).

  

       See how the meat is sort of "shredded/chunks"?

   12.  Place baking sheet on lower-middle rack and broil  until top of meat is well browned and

          edges are slightly crisp, 5 to 8 minutes It looks burned but it tastes WAY better with a few

          extra crispy pieces. Using  wide spatula, flip pieces of meat and continue

 

      

       to broil until top is well browned and edges are slightly crisp, 5 to 8 minutes longer. 

See how easy that was?

13.  Serve immediately with warm tortillas and garnishes. We used flour tortillas because I'm allergic

       to corn, but this would be delicious with some corn tortillas.

Happy Weekend!  We're hanging out with friends, celebrating babies and eating lots of yummy food. Doing anything fun and exciting? Whatever it is, eat well and be happy, it's the weekend!