Rocco is obsessed with two things right now—trucks and basketball. He especially loves fire trucks. So for his second birthday, we decided to throw him a DIY fire truck birthday party.

I found these free printables to make him a birthday banner. To make the banner, I used red and yellow construction paper, rubber cement and twine. I cut out the letters and trucks and glued them onto the construction paper with rubber cement. Then I taped the pennants to the twine with mailing tape. You could definitely string the pennants if you have a hole punch.

I love how the banner turned out. It was adorable, so easy to make, and really inexpensive. Rocco loved it too. He kept pointing at the trucks and repeated over and over bire truck, bire truck (he hasn’t gotten his f’s yet).

I also found this template to make foam firemen’s hats. I bought crafting foam from Michael’s along with craft glue to make the hat and the yellow badge shape. Jade shrunk the template for Gigi, but the template is so simple, you can adjust the inside (cut out more or less) to fit your individual head size.

Jade also made cool fire hat badges with each of our names on them, which I got printed and laminated at the local printing shop. I glued them onto the front of each of the hats for a personalized touch.

For Rocco’s cake, I made a low sugar strawberry cake. To decorate it, Jade made a firetruck image that we got printed on edible paper at a cake shop for about ten bucks. The edible paper images are so easy to use. They are just like giant stickers that you place on top of the cake. You can view the entire cake recipe here.

To be honest with you, the party was kind of a flop. I think the problem was that Jade and I had built up in our minds how much fun it would be and how excited Rocco would be. In reality, Rocco was more interested in playing with the (wrapped) basketball we got him than wearing his fireman’s hat or enjoying the cake and decorations.

We learned a really important lesson about toddler birthday parties—don’t expect your toddler to be nearly as into it as you are. Rocco was most excited to play with his fire truck balloons and play with his new basketball hoop. All the rest was unnecessary and more for us than for him.

Even though the party wasn’t as fun as we had expected, I still really enjoyed making his decorations, cake and party hats. Plus, the pictures are pretty cute, so I wanted to share with you how I came up with his DIY fire truck birthday party.

Have you had a similar experience with a toddler birthday?