This year Oliver wanted to have an Army Birthday Party for his 9th birthday. He isn’t 9 yet, but we chose to celebrate his birthday in the summer so he could have a pool party. His birthday is the day before Christmas Eve so the poor guy hasn’t really been able to experience a real birthday party with friends before.

Since I love all things neutral, I knew it was going to be a bit of a challenge to pull off an army birthday party that Oliver would love. I didn’t want to go out and buy all things army because let’s face it, it would get ruined, trashed, and create clutter if I decided to keep it. My strength in hosting parties is finding unique ways to use what we already have and only buying a few pieces to go with a theme.

The Minimalist Army Birthday Cake

The birthday cake was 2 store-bought vanilla cakes that I stacked on top of one another. My intentions were to bake them from scratch, but life got away from me, and I wasn’t about to stay up to the wee hours of the night baking a vanilla cake in the summer.

I iced the cake overtop of the store cake icing with my own simple vanilla icing recipe. I wasn’t too picky about how clean the lines were on the cake since I wanted it to have a rugged feel to go with the army theme.

To finish it off, I added 3 little green army men with the cutest small red balloon.

Food For An Army

Let’s face it, all those Pinterest-worthy food labels and themed party foods are fun to look at, but man are they a lot of work. I have been there and done that with Oliver’s Beary Adventurous Birthday Party. It was 100% worth it, but it was a lot of work. I spent the entire time setting up, the kids maybe ate and enjoyed it for 15 minutes, and then I had to spend the rest of the time taking it down to be out of the campsite on time.

This year we went easy, Oliver wanted pizza so we ordered it. I served chips, popcorn, and watermelon for the snacks. Juice boxes and water were our drinks, paired with the cutest army animal cracker favours.

Army Birthday Party Favours

I wanted Oliver’s party favours to be simple and something that parents didn’t just throw out when they got home. I decided to make little jars that the kids could take home to collect all of their little trinkets in once it was empty. I bought small mason jars and glued an army man to the top. I then sprayed the lid with the army man on top with beige and dark green spray paint. Once dried, I filled it with animal crackers.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that Ryan set up a fun obstacle course for the kids to complete along with water guns to battle in the pool. They all had a blast. Oliver said it was the best day ever!

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