Texas Showdown Party

This past weekend we celebrated Jase's 7th birthday. Yes, that said 7th! We went back and forth on themes this year (from the American Revolution to Texas' Independence) and finally settled on a Texas Showdown theme. Right away we knew we wanted a Wild West atmosphere with good old Texas cookin'.

The cake that the Pope's made turned out just perfect. Jase's request for the cake included "tan, like the color of the fence, maybe some rope and a Texas flag." They completely nailed it and Jase was beyond pleased with it. He even requested chocolate cake with chocolate icing and I let him run with it. He made a good call because it was delicious. Around the cake I had a "Happy Trails" Trail Mix Bar set-up where they could make their own trail mix. It was simple and fairly cheap {plus I had the mason jars} and I thought it fit in well with the rustic theme.

So if you know me, then you know that we love to come up with catchy names for the food items. This is something we all pitch in with here at the house and enjoy. Here are some of the food items we had this year: Pioneer Pickles, Wild West Watermelon, Wagon Wheels, Texas Toast, Vicious Veggies and Rustic Ranch. I have to tell you that I found an idea for the ranch cups. They used small plastic containers {from the dollar store} and had a label on top that said "Every horse needs a little ranch." I changed it up and said "Every Cowboy needs a little ranch." They turned out cute.

Then for the main course I wanted to make sure to include items that Jase liked. My mom cooked the brisket, which was delicious by the way. Shawn cooked sausage on the pit and all of the fixins' we made inside. Mama's Macaroni and Cheese was pretty tasty. I ended up using Pioneer Woman's recipe and it did not disappoint. For Old Besty's Beans I also used a Pioneer Woman recipe...again so tasty. I will definitely be making both of these recipes again. We also had Cowboy Corn {ears of corn} and Bowie's Beans which were some refried beans I made.

Ok, so I HAVE to share the lemonade punch recipe. We had it at a shower earlier this year and it is absolutely delicious!! I will definitely be making this again, like maybe this weekend! Haha!
2 Cups of Country Time Lemonade Mix
64 oz of chilled Pineapple Juice
1.5 Liters of chilled Sprite
2 Cups of Cold Water

Onto the activities for the kiddos. Below I am explaining that there are 4 training stations they must complete before earning their Sheriff Badge. It was basically organized chaos. They kids could go to any of the stations at any time and in any order they wanted to. It was not a race, just go at your own pace.

Target Practice - Here the kids used an old fashioned rubber band gun to practice shooting bandits. You can find the instructions Shawn followed here. You will notice that we kept ours pretty simple and did not use any clips as they did in the video. We did cut notches out {with a file} at the end of gun so the rubber band stayed a little better in place when you pulled it back.

Animal Round-Up - This was probably my favorite. We placed animal crackers on a plate and then covered them with whipping cream and the kids had to "round-up" the animals without using their hands. It was funny to watch them and I think they enjoyed the snack too!

Nickel in the Haystack - So I wanted to do some type of mining for gold or needle in the haystack, so this was somewhat of a combination of the two. Since we were already renting hay bales, we just picked up some loose hay and it worked out perfect. We placed quarters, dimes and nickels in the haystack and the kids had to search for the money. The only catch was there was a 50 cent maximum find. I couldn't have someone running off with $5.00 and another child getting nada. I just used spare change I had here at the house, so it worked out perfect.

Calf Roping - Pretty self explanatory on this one. Shawn made lassos for the kids to use and they roped the rocking horse. This was probably the most difficult station to be honest. The rope probably could have been a little stiffer, which would have made it easier to maneuver. But hey, no one ever said country life was easy!

After 15-20 minutes we gathered all the kids and awarded them with Sheriff Badges. We also gave each one of them a red bandanna and a pair of sun glasses for eye protection for what was coming up next.

Texas Showdown - We all headed out front for the big face-off. Each Partner was given a gun of his own to use {and to take home}.

We split them up into teams and threw down rubber bands for them to use. They were excited!

I don't recall any rubber band injuries, which was a blessing! The kids had fun "shooting" each other.

After the showdown, we headed to the backyard and everyone ate. Then we followed that up with cake and ice cream. I just love this birthday boy!

 Finally, we finished up with presents inside.

At the party someone was asking Jase about his birthday parties and he told them that there is always a theme! Haha! And then he told them that this was the best theme yet! That made my heart happy. That is why Shawn and I do it. I'm so glad the birthday boy and his friends enjoyed the party and memories were made.