we had an awesome time celebrating Brady’s fire station ONE  first birthday party! this party came together much more than I could have imagined thanks to Pinterest (of course) + Jordan for being such a HUGE help. not to mention, a major shout out to AFD for spending their saturday afternoon with us! Jordan went to visit the fire station several weeks ago to see about having the guys come out for an hour or so to show off their amazing engine to our crew of kids for Brady’s birthday party. they kindly obliged and after approval from the chief, we were all set for their special visit (and praying they wouldn’t get a call between 2:30-3:30pm)!  right before the party Jordan dropped off a cooler of steaks + blue bell ice cream to show our great appreciation and thanks for making Brady’s day extra special!

after we checked out the engine (and the ambulance that tagged a long, too!) the guys pulled out the little hose for the kids to take turns shooting a little bit of water down the cup de sac! birthday boy was up first!

 

everyone back inside for some food! as always, I order most everything from Market Street. there once was a time that I prepared every single bit of food for the parties I hosted and as the years have gone on I have found it to be so much easier for my sanity to have the food taken care of when I’m hosting large groups! we went with small plates since it was an afternoon party- my FAVorite ham sliders (you know, those ones all over Pinterest with the poppyseed-honey mustard glaze?), chicken skewers (which ended up being WAY larger in size than I had anticipated!), spinach artichoke dip, and jalapeño deviled eggs (courtesy of miss Teresa!)

this backdrop was a labor of love thanks to my amazing husband! he really is the best when it comes to helping me with things like this! love my handy-man 🙂 we bought the faux brick in a sheet at Home Depot and Jordan cut it to size to fit the frame he made with 2×4’s. it was a team effort for figuring out how to make a balloon garland and my mother in law found a youtube tutorial (HERE) that was really helpful!  its much simpler than it looks, I promise. just takes a bit of time and patience! a lot of the fire decor is real. Jordan went to the property + supply guy for the department (very old friend of the Massey family!) and asked for anything old/out of service that they would be willing to part ways with. Jordan was able to find several old fire tools and fire hose + nozzles! really REALLY cool things that had Jordan so excited and talking my ear off explaining their use while we decorated the night before the party.

we paired those items with what Jordan had already and items we borrowed from Jordan’s dad who retired from the same department just a couple of years ago!these fire boots are Jordan’s dad’s boots from the 70’s when they didn’t have actual bunker gear to wear. the boots fold up to their thighs and they wore a heavy coat to fight fire. no face mask. no air packs. you might be able to see Papa’s initials (in red) on the inside of the boots! BB’s amazing banana pudding! Jordan’s mom kindly volunteered to make our family’s favorite dessert of all time and layered them in 4oz jelly jars for a pretty presentation! 

probably my favorite DIY of the entire party! I had seen this picture on Pinterest and forwarded it to Jordan asking for him to build me a drink station similar! my friend Miranda, from chalk design by me, brought it to life with her talented scripting for the ‘fueling station‘.

the ‘always kiss my firefighter goodnight’ sign from six eleven co (Jordan also works with Brittani’s husband!) is going to hang in Brady’s room with the canvas prints I had made for the party to replace his newborn prints hanging above his crib! there was chick-fil-a sweet tea (oil) + beer punch (diesel) for the adults and served V8 berry juice (gas) for the kids!

 cake time! friends and family sang happy birthday to Brady as he sat stone faced for the entire time! 

cake + cupcakes for everyone!