A Safari Birthday

March 21, 2024 Heather Mosby

You guys. This party was just so, so special. Every time I reflect on it, I just smile. It was such a joy to put it all together & create a fun space for our girl and for the people we love.

The only way it could have been more special is if we could have had ALL our people there but when I added that list up it tallied in at over 140 which would be a little tooooo cozy in our backyard so we had a family dinner with close family to celebrate on her actual birthday, a playdate with some friends the following week, and kept her theme party a little smaller with just our church group and a few additional families. Yes, you are right, we are cray-cray, and are having basically 3 parties, but we just love them so much.

Okay! Let’s jump into some fun stuff. I can’t wait to fill you in on all the little details of this special day we had celebrating our sweet Augustine’s 2nd Birthday.

For over 8 months, I dreamt of having a Safari Party for Augustine’s second. I’ve always thought of her as my wild one. Not in the wild and unruly, negative kind of way, but in a wild & free kind of way. She’s a free spirit to her core and she has such a beautiful, wild, zest for life that I love. I wanted to capture that in a fun, wild birthday party. Enter the Safari theme! This theme sparked in my heart months before and I dreamt of what this party might look ever since.

Going with the safari theme, I knew right away that we had to get some sort of petting zoo but more specifically a wild petting zoo. I was so thankful to find Wild Things Zoofari petting zoo based in Austin. They have tortoises, pigs, chickens, pigmy goats, etc. and wait for it… a kangaroo! I was 100% sold by the kangaroo and I have to tell you Bella, her name, did not disappoint! She prefers being out of the cage so she free-roamed the majority of the party which, I will say, made this petting zoo worth every penny! To have a free roaming kangaroo at a Safari-themed birthday for someone like me who’s obsessed with the theme & “Feel” of the party… it really couldn’t get any better! Is a roaming kangaroo a love language? Because if so, it’s mine! haha The kids and adults also loved it! It was fun to see Augustine and Hazel randomly walking up to her and giving her a quick pet on their way to grab more food or to play in the sandbox.

With so many kids expected, even with our trimmed guest list, I knew our bounce house would be too small for this crew, so we rented the Boho Bounce House from Upscale Social. I chose the Boho one because it gave me Safari Hut vibes. I was so, so impressed with the two young men who set it up and took it down. They were incredibly respectful, patient, and helpful. The girls LOVED this bounce house. Hazel was so confused on Monday night when we set up our own bounce house (also, recommend ours! It’s held up great year after year) as to why our “white bounce house” was missing. I highly recommend Upscale Social for local to Austin events.

I’ve recently been watching balloon garland tutorials because I’ve known that I’m not doing it right. In parties past, I’ve just used the balloon tape that comes with the garland and I knew that it wasn’t as full or secure as professional garlands I’ve seen. So I did some research and found an awesome tutorial by YesEventDecor. Her method made it so, so easy to make all of the garlands for the party and it was incredibly fast compared to what I had been doing! As this safari theme was ruminating in my mind, I knew that I wanted the entrance to be through the front door, as opposed to the side gate which is what we normally do, and through the arched entry into our living room, because I wanted to make a massive balloon garland from our landing to the first floor. This turned out so, so good, and if you can believe it, only took me just over an hour and a half to make.

I recently bought this background hoop for another event and knew it would make a great backdrop piece for the backyard. When using large spaces to set a party, I’m big on having large focal points to help transform the space. I added another easy balloon garland to it, added some butcher paper across it, and then had a friend write out “Augustine’s birthday” on the paper. I think it turned out great and made for a great photo backdrop while also adding to the theme & drawing in the space.

It’s no surprise that our Farmer’s Market Stand made a debut! Since that party, we’ve used it at every theme party since. So, so versatile! If you weren’t around for it, to fill you in, Zachary made this stand for Hazel’s second birthday. I love how this stand can be added and layered on for any theme.

For “Base Camp” I just stapled some cardboard onto the wood stand and added some layering pieces from around the house. For the boxes, I simply covered some Amazon boxes with butcher paper, made the “Monkey Chow,” etc signs on Canva, and taped them on. Soooo easy but big impact. In this area, I set up these fun safari hats & some snack bags.

For activities, besides the petting zoo and bounce house, I grabbed some Safari animal figurines from Amazon for the kids to paint, filled these pools with sand and gold Safari animals, and balls and stuffed snakes for a “Snake Pit.” No toddler party would be complete without bubbles so I made sure to have plenty of bubble juice on hand for our bubble machine and had a basket of small bubble wands that Augustine specifically was obsessed with. I saw her on multiple occasions carrying an armful of them! I also highly recommend temporary tattoos! They’re always the first thing to go at our parties! In fact, I never seem to order enough. I also made some super easy binoculars out of paper towel rolls that the kids had a lot of fun with.

For food, I had delicious steak, chicken, roast veggies, and shrimp catered from Central Market, and then filled the rest of our table with veggies, fruit, cheeses, sweets, snacks, etc. I made sure to have baskets of easy to grab snacks for the kiddos, too. Inspired by something I saw on Pinterest (I can’t remember where!), I made these bags of “Rations” filled with animal crackers and Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies for the kiddos. For drinks, we filled the coolers with waters, Hint boxes, and beer and seltzer for the adults. We also made two delicious pitchers cocktails, this Watermelon Margarita, and this Blackberry Bourbon Lemonade. Both were huge hits!

For the cake and cupcakes, I just ordered plain cakes from HEB, our local grocer, and added edible palm leaves and gold animal figurines to them to dress them up. I always order plain icing cakes, so I can add the fun stuff to them to match the theme.

When it was time for cake, we took a moment to say a prayer over Augustine, with our close friends there, and prayed for our friend Levi, too, since it was his actual birthday that day!

In addition to the craft, binoculars, and Safarfi hat, I also provided a more “traditional” in a bag party favor with these cute “Adopt a Safari Animal” bags. Inside each bag was a stuffed animal safari animal.

The party went so well and Augustine had a really great time. What a gift it is to be able to celebrate her in this way and to be able to throw fun parties for our kids, family, and friends to enjoy!

Vendors

Petting Zoo: Wild Things Zoofari

Bounce House: Upscale Social

Balloon Garland: The Celebrate Daily

Event Styling: The Celebrate Daily

Signs: The Celebrate Daily

Event Decor: The Celebrate Daily

Links

Balloons

Photo Backdrop Hoop

Hats (Oriental Traders)

Snakes