Zander turned 4 last week, and has been all about camping recently. He and his dad even camped out in our postage stamp size back yard a few weeks ago and I have honestly never seen him so excited about going to sleep. We roasted marshmallows, and ate dinner outside before they tucked into their tent for the night. We thought it would be a fitting theme for his birthday party this year, since the weather is getting cooler, and who doesn’t love to roast marshmallows by a campfire??

I think I may have had more fun planing this party than Zander did running around with all his friends. I printed off this hand drawn wood grain pattern I found online for the kid’s cups. I thought about going more literal with the cups and using something like mason jars, or actual wooden cups which definitely would have been cute, but I liked the simplicity of the black and white and the reference to wood rather than the real thing.

 I used the same pattern for the firewood for the indoor campsite. The tent came from IKEA and has proven to be one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. The kids have had an absolute blast with it and it fold up into a neat, small, flat package for easy storage.

The cake was my favorite part, and the idea was stolen right off of Pinterest so I can’t take too much credit for that. I used Pillsbury Purely Simple cake mix and frosting which in my opinion didn’t taste super great, but I felt a little better about it. I topped the cake with crushed thin mints and chocolate covered nuts and raisins, with pretzel stick trees and a graham cracker tent.

Unfortunately it was too windy out to roast marshmallows outside, but the kids didn’t seem to mind eating the toffee and coconut covered ones inside.