Well, the lumberjack party was for Jess whose birthday is the day after mine.
The night before, Josh and I went to see Othello at Portland Center Stage as a gift from my parents. I always get excited about a PCS show, not in small part because of their sets. This one was definitely up to their high standards. And can we talk about the actress who played Emilia? Because she made those old, marvelous words come alive! She stole the show for me!
Anyhow, I was glad that the birthday party was in the afternoon, because after a late night (I am 30 now, after all, and being on the train at 11:30 constitutes a "late night"), I needed the morning to finish the cooking and arranging.
I made the invitations from paper and fabric scraps we had from other projects. We got a great response from family and friends. I was excited to see 30 people join us to celebrate!
We set two long tables out in the backyard. I made a burlap table runner like this last fall, so that came out along with some fabric bunting to adorn the tables. I set the food on log rounds to add dimension. I tried to think of lumberjack-y fare, so we had a big pot of chili and some freshly smoked corn on the cob. I didn't get to take any pictures of the food until after the party was over, but the chili looked like chili and the corn looked like corn.
We had chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting with chocolate shavings on top that made me think of sawdust. We had a dutch oven full of candied pecans. We had mustache and tree shaped gingersnaps and sweet tea that we drank from mason jars.
Jess ate his cake oh-so-carefully, as we suspected he would.
Finger by finger, he ate that cake. He took so long that the party moved on without him, as you can see!
When he finally finished, we moved inside to cool off and open gifts. People were so generous, and Jess is having so much fun with his new toys.
The whole thing was simple to do, and largely free. We let the trees and pond be the décor and used fabric and wood that we already had otherwise. The only cost was the food, which took us another 10 days to finish eating!
It doesn't seem like a year has gone by. This kid. Those eyes. My goodness.
