cars movie birthday party

last weekend was our annual celebration of owen & oliver on their birthday! {you can see birthday #3 here.} this year both of the boys are really into characters from the disney cars movie: tow mater for oliver & dinoco for owen. we didn't want to get too crazy with the cars theme so my sister-in-law alli & i mostly played off of the colors of the cars movie characters & a sandy color for radiator springs- a town in the desert where most of the movie takes place. 

we went with an evite again this year. i added a recent pic of the two boys and little pictures of mater & dinoco to tie in the theme.

trying to get away from the usual hot dog/hamburger routine at an outdoor party, alli came up with a great idea for a gourmet taco bar. we served flour tortillas & corn taco shells, shredded chicken & carne asada with the usual fixings of shredded cheese, diced tomato, shredded lettuce and sour cream. also on the menu were black beans, refried beans, chips, salsa, guacamole & fruit cups. 

the birthday banner was made with an iron-on letter set & pennants cut from felt sheets {all from hobby lobby}. line up the pennants & put them thru the sewing machine. easy breezy! 

the real star of the show though was the birthday cake! {inspired by this cake} alli made an amazing 3 layer carrot cake with cream cheese frosting tinted to look like sand. mater, dinoco and the cactus were made from royal icing using a royal icing transfer technique. milk chocolate rocks added the perfect touch! 

man, it's hard to get a good picture of these 2 monkeys! their shirts were made with felt, wonder under & coordinating shirts from wal-mart.  i opened up a word document and printed a "4" in all-star font, size 550. used it as my pattern to cut out 4's from the leftover banner felt. i used the red & blue felt 4's as my guideline to cut numbers out of checkered flag felt about a quarter or half inch bigger all the way around. i sewed the two 4's together then used wonder under to attach them to the shirts.

happy 4th birthday to two of my favorite little people!