Taco Twosday Birthday Party

Taco Twosday Birthday Party

Are you looking for a fun and easy theme for your toddler’s second birthday party?  If you are looking for ideas on how to throw a Taco “Twosday” party you are in luck, as I have just thrown one for my little guy!  Below in this post you will find some great decorative items, menu planning, favor ideas and even a free invitation template.

*Please note:  This blog post contains affiliate links, which means that if you make a purchase using one of these links, at no additional cost to you, I may receive a commission from those purchases.  You can read my full disclosure here.

So where to start?

First things first, you need to figure out your guest list.  Coming up with an idea of how many people you are expecting will help you determine a location and then menu.  For our son’s second birthday party we kept it to just close friends and family.  Our total number of people including children was 32, which included 12 children.  We opted to throw the party at my in-laws home.

The Invitations

PicMonkey or Canva (link here to invitation templates) are great online design sites that make creating your own invitation super easy.  I used PicMonkey to create this invitation.These invitations can be printed on photo paper then filled out with permanent marker.  You can even get great looking prints from Office Max.  You are welcome to use this invitation template for your own party, but please, NO RESALE of this image.

Download Invitation here: TacoTwosdayInvitation

The Decorations

Decorating should be fun, help set the mood of the party and in my opinion, be reusable.  I really hate one time use decor.  I found some great and reusable decorations on Amazon, that packed a lot of punch, in setting the mood, and required very minimal set-up.  These decorations would look great at a park ramada and would go up and come down quickly.  We have done tons of birthday parties at parks and decor has always been a challenge since we have a limited amount of time there.  Oh yeah and instead of doing balloons I opted to buy some of those 3D cardboard letters and paint them.  Balloons are fun, especially the foil letter balloons, but we didn’t want to add another errand to run prior to party time.  The painted letters were cute and we were able to place them on tables or on the taco bar (see below in food pics).

Large Plastic Papel Picado Banner – 15 Feet Long – (3 Pack, All Occasions)

 Fiesta Colorful Paper Fans Lantern Round Wheel Disc (12 Pieces)

Party Favors

Somehow I missed taking a photo of the adorable party favors we gave the kids.  You will just have to take my word for it, but it was really cute and the favors kind of doubled as decorations.  We purchased mini maracas and tied up them in pairs with some ribbon and placed them in a basket.  I found the maracas on Amazon and they are great for toddlers.  They are fairly quiet, so the sound of 20 maracas shaking wasn’t really annoying.

  Wooden Fiesta Maracas (12 pieces)

The Food

The decision to do a Taco “Twos”day party had a lot to do with the food.  Now a days it seems that there are so many dietary restrictions for so many people.  A taco bar could be made keto, gluten-free, paleo, nut-free, dairy-free and so on.  We also decided to make as much as possible ourselves.  However, we did chose a few items to get already prepared in order to save some time and energy… after all, we do have a toddler that needs attention.  Below is what we offered to our guests…

Homemade

• Carne Asada (recipe from The Stay At Home Chef here).
• Grilled Chicken with a fajita seasoning (brined, coated in avocado oil, then seasoned).
• Instant Pot “Refried” Beans (recipe from The Pudge Factor here).
• Spanish Rice (recipe by I Love To Cook here).
• Quesadilla Tray (for the kiddos).
• Guacamole (Our guacamole is a little different every time, but ALWAYS delicious).
• Cabbage Salad 
• Pico De Gallo (Also always a little different but consists of tomato, onion, cilantro, jalapeño and lime).
• Primal Cheesecake (recipe found in The Keto Reset Diet by Mark Sisson).

 This cheesecake recipe was a huge hit, and the first dessert to go!

• Fruit Salad (I actually didn’t make it, my mother-in-law did… it’s kinda her thing)

Store bought

• Salsa (Costco)
• Cake Mix and frosting (we baked and frosted cupcakes and even made a tie-dye cake, see below)
• Chips (Costco)
• Tortillas (flour and corn from Costco)
• Veggie Tray (Costco)

I had purchased some fun cardboard food trays from Amazon.  They made carrying around chips, fruit, veggies, etc. easy.

Brown Kraft Paper Food Tray, Capacity of 2.5lb

All of the food was made earlier in the day.  The meats were thrown on the grill about two hours before party start time and kept warn in chafing dishes.

I don’t know about you, but I hate when I am still scrambling around getting food ready and out when the guests start to arrive.  

The Fun

Alright, so I know this is crazy given the theme of the party but… we did not have a piñata!  I know, I know we should have had one.  We actually gave it some serious thought and decided against it for a couple of reasons.

1. I don’t want my kids having candy, so I am not going to give to other people’s kids.
2. The toy “goodies” are usually total crap and the parents have to “disappear them” aka throw away.
3. Someone usually ends up in tears, whether it be a person hit by the baton, or the kid that doesn’t get any or as many goodies as everyone else.

I do think they make cute decorations though.  There are mini piñatas available on Amazon here.

Since our children guests aged anywhere from two (mostly two year olds) to 12, we did a couple of things.  We bought the big-ass pack of water balloons from Costco.  You think that is an insane amount of water balloons, but it isn’t, get two packs.

***TIP*** Have a couple of prizes on hand, to give to the kids that pick up the most water balloons.  There wasn’t a single trace of a water balloon fight after “The Pick-up Game”.

We also purchased a toddler pool, it was such a great purchase and we absolutely love it… the kids did too!  The toddler pool is sort of like a small splash-pad.  It has sprinklers that spray into the pool and it also comes with inflatable accessories.  The kids stayed occupied and the parents were able to talk, it was great.  Link to it on Amazon HERE.

Overall

The party was a huge success!  There was plenty of food, maybe even too much.  Everybody that made it out had a great time, especially the kids (you know its a good party when the kids don’t want to leave).  Most importantly, even we, the hosts, had a great time.  Usually hosting a party can be a bit stressful and you spend your time running around.  We were able to enjoy conversation with guests and even had the opportunity to eat and enjoy the fiesta.

Thanks for reading, and check back for more birthday party tips!

April aka ZonaMom

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