Are you ready for a great hoedown?

Here’s a fun birthday party for a little boy.  Cuz what boy doesn’t love cowboys?

It all starts with the invitations.  Here’s how I made the “Wanted” invitations above.  Dress your little cowboy in a hat and bandanna.  My cowboy insisted on a six-shooter too.  He couldn’t wait to make an ornery face!

After taking a digital picture, I imported the picture and created the card in Microsoft Word.  Yes, I know Word is really low tech, but it is also really easy! I used the free font available in my Word fonts called Blackoak standard.  Then I printed the Wanted Posters out on parchment paper. To age them a bit, I lightly rubbed them with sandpaper.  I ran the cards through the printer for the inside text.  Then I glued the Wanted Poster to the cards and added the antique brass brads. Here’s the text inside the card:

HOWDY PARTNER!
Saddle up and head west
to the Alpine Homestead of the ______ Family
‘Cuz the Dirty Rustler
Benjamin “Black Boot”
is having a Birthday Roundup (then date, time and RSVP)

For activities we played horseshoes and practiced ropin’ a horse with a real lasso. Then we panned for gold which was the hit of the party. I used iron pyrite or Fools Gold (you could also gather rocks and spray paint them gold.)  In our very large sandbox I dug shallow holes for each child.  I gave every child a cowboy name and then made claim markers on which I wrote “Claim #15, Buffalo Will” or “Connor the Kid”.  I printed the claims on parchment and mounted them on red cardstock and then mounted the claim on a popsicle stick.  I carefully covered the hole and stuck the claim marker right on top.  I save all my old pie tins and my husband kindly drilled holes (fairly large, but smaller than the rocks)  The kids then dug up their gold, swirling the sand in the pie tins until the gold was revealed.  We had little sacks made from muslin for the gold to go in.  They loved it.

The kids cooked their own hot dogs over a fire (quite an experience!)  The rest of the meal was watermelon, baked beans (recipe to follow) and chips.  We served rootbeer in brown bottles.  Each meal was served on a pie tin for a plate (the cowboy way!)  I decorated with our camping lantern, hay bales and ropes.

The cake was cute… it was a campfire.  I baked chocolate cake in my long bread pans.  Froze them and then cut them into a roundish shape with a serrated knife.  I frosted them with chocolate frosting and used a fork to make them look like wood.  I used a lighter brown (chocolate with white frosting mixed in) for the ends and ran the for in a circle action to create rings.  I bought chocolate donut holes and tossed them with powdered sugar for the coals, and tried to used orange fruit leather for the flames (they didn’t look that good.)

For the party favors, I used regular brown paper sacks, with cute tags made from bandanna paper and their cowboy names printed on parchment.  They were filled with the little sacks of gold, a harmonica, and a bundle of dynamite (my favorite)  The dynamite was made from covering 3 packages of Rollo candies in red construction paper.  Hold the three rolls together and stick black shoelace licorice in the middle, sticking some out of the end like a wick.  Then I tied the bundle together.  They were so cute!  It was a great hoedown!  And by using things we already had and a little elbow grease, it didn’t cost a whole lot either.

Now for the Baked Beans recipe… It’s real cowboy food!

Buddy Loves Baked Beans

2 40-oz. cans Pork & Beans
1 20-oz. can red kidney beans
2 15-oz. cans baby lima beans
1 ½ lbs. ground hamburger
1 onion diced
1 lb. bacon, diced
11/2 c. ketchup
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups white granulated sugar
3-4 TBSP liquid smoke
2 TBSP vinegar
Tabasco sauce to taste –lots for me thanks

Brown hamburger and onion; drain.  Cook bacon, drain.  Drain and rinse all beans (except Pork and Beans.)  Mix all the ingredients in a 5 quart oven proof pot with a tight fitting lid (I use a dutch oven.)  Cook in oven at 300 degrees with the lid.  Remove lid and cook three more hours at 250 degrees.  If the beans are too thick you can always add water to get the right consistency.