Backyard Back-to-School Bash!

Who else enjoys some good Pinterest browsing? I would guess that many of you do! I wouldn't say I'm a Pinterest addict or anything, but there are certainly times that I enjoy just scrolling for way too long on Pinterest. And, it's those times that get me in trouble, haha. When I'm on Pinterest just browsing, I get ideas and find projects!

One evening in the summer, I was on Pinterest and all these cute pins for camping themed parties kept coming up. I thought at the time that I would like to make "camping" or "outdoors" our next birthday party theme. I mean, how fun would that be?!? The more I saw these camping themed parties, the more I thought that maybe we should throw a summer party with that theme. We had been wanting to have some families we don't know well yet over for a gathering anyhow. And then I thought . . . why don't we do a back-to-school camping theme party?!?

I approached Chris with the idea not expecting him to be too eager about it, but he was totally on board! He loved the idea for the theme, and loved the idea to invite some families over that we didn't know very well and had never had over. We decided we would call it our Backyard Back-to-School Bash, and we would host it on a Friday evening (in hopes of the weather being a bit cooler than a Saturday afternoon) about a week and a half before school started back. 

As we were brainstorming ideas for activities for the kids, Chris came up with the idea of creating a backyard obstacle course. I loved the idea, and within about a half an hour, we had the whole thing sketched out. We also decided we would serve hot dogs, frito chili pies, fruit, and s'mores. We had been discussing building a fire pit in our backyard, so this gave us the motivation we needed to do just get it done. Two weekends before the party, Chris built our firepit. One week before the party, Chris started setting up the obstacle course. 

Of course, no project around here can be done without lots of little helpers :-).

Brooke

Brecklyn

I helped Chris quite a bit with setting up the obstacle course, but the design for it all was his idea. I was using my creativity to create some fun decor for our backyard bash. 

Our mantle

I framed six of these fun prints. Love!

One of my favorite decor pieces was the pinecone garland Chris and I made. 

I also loved these old lanterns that belonged to Chris's grandpa.

I used more pinecones as a centerpiece on our island in the kitchen and was sure to set out our guestbook.

Another favorite thing about this party was the Trail Mix Bar I set up in our kitchen. Each tin bucket had a trail mix ingredient in it (we used raisins, M&Ms, Chex, almonds, pretzels, and dried apricots), and we used paper sacks to hold it all. The kids all loved making their own trail mix!

I stamped the paper sacks just to give them a little fun and color. 

I also made this Welcome sign that we put in our flower bed at the front of our house. The wood I used came from Chris's grandpa's barn. I love special pieces like this that have a history!

Several months ago, I had purchased a blank banner with no purpose in mind for it (always a dangerous thing!) I decided that it would be perfect for our backyard bash, so I cut letters for it on my Cricut and decorated it with a few trees and pine cones. We hung it on the back patio.

We ended up having a great crowd for our party. We just didn't know what kind of response we'd get since some of the families we didn't know well, and the party was on a Friday evening shortly before school started. However, the RSVPs started rolling in, and we quickly realized we were going to have a fairly large crowd. I put as many chairs on the back patio as would reasonably fit, and we also set up both of our kiddie tables. 

You'll notice that I also hung pine cone garland out there. I just thought it was so cute!

Our plan was for this to be an outside party, so we set up several stations in the backyard to keep the kiddos entertained. I made these signs (keeping with the Camp Nelson theme, of course) to identify each station. 

The station our kids were most excited about was the obstacle course! It was a BIG hit with most of the kids!

This is a view of the entire course.

It started with pavers to hop on,

which led to a tent to crawl through.

After coming out of the tent, there were two hurdles to jump,

a balance beam to walk,

and weaving sticks to run around. 

Then, the weaving sticks led straight to a teeter totter balance beam, 

which led to sticks to jump over, 

and hay bales to climb to a slide.

After sliding down the slide, the children would run to a ball pit and crawl through.

Finally, after crawling through the ball pit, they would run through the Finish Line.

We also had the playhouse open for the kids, 

(complete with a camping coloring sheet),

a s'more station by the fire pit,

and a table set up with a craft!

We anticipated that we'd still have guests as it started to get dark, so we also provided glow sticks for all the kids. Glow sticks are cheap, easy fun that all kids seem to enjoy!

Like I said above, we had a pretty good crowd, and the flow of everything was great! We served all the food inside, but most everyone took it outside to eat. Before the party really got started, we took time to welcome everyone to our home and pray over everyone preparing to begin a new school year.

The craft included coloring on the wooden discs with sharpies (fine tip) and stringing a leather band through the hole to make a necklace. Many of the kids really enjoyed this!

Brenson sporting his craft and eating trail mix :-).

Chloe Jo

It worked out great to have multiple stations for the kids because while several kids were working on their craft, others were running through the obstacle course. Some of the kids (boys, especially) ran through the obstacle course over and over the entire time!

Of course, we all enjoyed the food, as well!

Sweet baby Annie was too young to run and play, but she was all smiles anyway!

We were hoping the kids would think the obstacle course was as fun as we thought it was, and thankfully they did!

The swing set also stayed very busy that night :-).

Brooke and Abby

Charley, Brianna, and Gavon

Briley and Brenden

The playhouse got plenty of love, too!

Chloe Jo and Hayden

Sadie and Brecklyn

Cassie, Zeke, and Joe enjoying the fire

Bren and Russ

Josh and Rene

Chelley and Chris (we couldn't resist the matching t-shirts!)

Blake

Jesse and Angie

Chelley and Angie

Lisa, Russ, and Chloe Jo

I certainly didn't get pics of everyone (hard to do when you're the hostess), but I would like to list everyone who attended so we can remember. Adults: Chris, Chelley, Lisa, Russ, Tia, Ross, Anna, Mark, Josh, Rene, Kim, Tim, Kendall, Joy Lin, Brant, Angie, Jesse, Amy, Matt, Paul, Rebekah, Cassie, Joe Kids: Brianna, Brenson, Brooke, Brecklyn, Chloe Jo, Charley, Sadie, Caroline S, Gavon, Blake, Bentley, Briley, Brenden, Caroline L, Julia, Jack, Annie, Hayden, Avery, Abby, Zeke

By the end of the evening, I don't think there was one kid who wasn't sticky (mostly from the s'mores), dirty, and tired! That sounds like the perfect summer evening to me! 

Brooke and Brecklyn were definitely all of those things, but they LOVED having a house full of guests! 

Brianna and Brenson had such a great time, they asked to do it again the next night, haha!

Overall, I felt like things couldn't have gone better than they did. I was a little nervous before the event because it was a lot of people to host and a lot of NEW people to host. However, we had plenty of food and fun activities, the adults all enjoyed visiting, and the laughter from all the children was a beautiful sound! Families left one by one throughout the evening as they needed to, and the last few families went home around 9:30pm, so that was just right as well. We had such a wonderful time that we are hoping to make our Backyard Back-to-school Bash an annual event!