Chipmunks and Cars Themed Birthday Party

My youngest son turned seven this month, and we enjoyed celebrating him over the weekend with a Chipmunks and Cars themed birthday party. He plays with cars and trucks more than anything else, so all his past birthday parties (except his first birthday) have been vehicle-themed parties.

Earlier this year when we were talking about a theme for his upcoming birthday, we decided on chipmunks, but my son still wanted to have cars in the theme too.

Before I share the details of his party, here’s little context for why we chose chipmunks…

Two summers ago we took a family vacation to Estes Park and visited Rocky Mountain National Park. While there, we met a friendly chipmunk on one of the trails and my youngest son was later inspired to pick out a stuffed animal chipmunk from a gift shop. He named it Chippie and has been attached to it ever since. It’s like a real pet to him and he often carries him around in his shirt.

So, chipmunks are valuable in his little boy eyes!

As I started planning his birthday party, I realized there weren’t many party supplies for chipmunks, let alone a combined cars and chipmunks theme. While chipmunks are a part of the squirrel family and I did find some squirrel decor, chipmunks alone aren’t a common birthday party theme. The only thing that really came up in my online search was Alvin and the Chipmunks, but I wasn’t wanting to do anything cartoon related. My plan involved something more real life with chipmunks and cars.

Since related birthday supplies were scarce, I had to do some creative thinking to pull off his party. And since this is a theme with limited ideas on the Internet, I thought I’d share the details of how I made it work.

Since I’ve already planned several cars and truck birthdays for him, I decided to emphasize the chipmunk theme and add touches of car-related items. While there are plenty of woodland birthday party supplies, I wanted the decor to specifically reflect chipmunks, and that proved challenging to find. I ended up piecing together various things I found to create what turned out to be a really fun birthday party.

Birthday Banner and Balloons

Since I couldn’t find a chipmunk banner and didn’t want want to invent one due to time constraints, I decided to re-purpose his first birthday banner which was a woodlands theme. The letters were perfect because chipmunks are forest animals, but I covered up the original forest animals with chipmunk clipart I found on Etsy. Thankfully, there was at least some adorable birthday chipmunk clipart. You can find it HERE if interested.

I also found some acorn and chipmunk balloons on Amazon, although technically they were advertised as squirrels.

Food

Food is the heart of any birthday party and I always try to incorporate the theme into the food. I found some autumn food tent labels HERE and came up with names to fit the chipmunk theme. I also used our Waytoplay road and attached some chipmunks/squirrels to cars as a centerpiece.

Chipmunk Sliders: For the main dish, my son requested cheeseburger sliders, which by the way, were a big hit! We sometimes do family movie nights and one time when I was wanting to make something beside pizza, I came across a recipe for cheeseburger sliders. Since all three of my guys are cheeseburger fans, I figured they would be well received.

There are several recipes for cheeseburger sliders, but this classic one is great. I do make a few adjustments.

If I’m just making it for my family of four, I use a standard package of Hawaiian Rolls and I only use about 1 and 1/2 pounds of ground beef seasoned with Worcestershire, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Once I assemble it, I do one half with only ketchup and cheese (for my youngest), and the other half with added mustard and dill pickles. I brush it with garlic butter, but leave off the sesame seeds.

For the party, I bought party-sized packages of Hawaiian Rolls and used a whole package of ground beef from Costco, which made 48 sliders.

Forest Fries: What goes better with cheeseburgers than fries? I baked a variety of fries and served them on a tray with a variety of sauces. I haven’t made a fry board before, but it was the perfect compliment to the sliders. I never got around baking the waffle fries and onion rings I also planned to use, but maybe next time.

Forest Berries: One of my son’s favorite fruits is strawberries.

Sweet Acorns: I used mini Nilla Wafers, Hershey’s Kisses, and chocolate chips to make these sweet treats. I melted some chocolate chips and used that as glue to attach the kisses to the wafers. Then I stuck them in the freezer for a few minutes. Next I attached a chocolate chip to each acorn using more melted chocolate as the glue. I stuck them in the freezer for a few more minutes so everything remained intact. Not my original idea and if you do a search you’ll find various recipes.

Apple Cider Punch: With in it being the season of autumn, I made an apple cider punch with a combination of apple cider, ginger ale, frozen orange juice concentrate, and apple and orange slices.

Other Food: I also served a veggie tray, Chex Mix, and a cheese and salami tray (my son loves salami!).

Make-Your-Own-Chipmunk Mix

While planning, I came across an idea for setting up a trail mix display where guests could make their own trail mix. To match the theme, I called ours Chipmunk Mix and filled paper lunch bags with various sweet and salty goodies. I set out some sealable plastic bags so guests could easily take their mix home with them if they wanted.

goodies for the mix:

• mini oreos
• M&Ms
• mini marshmallows
• pretzels
• popcorn
• honey roasted peanuts
• gummy bears
• goldfish

This was a welcome addition and something I’ll probably incorporate again at a future party.

The Cake

From the beginning, I thought a chipmunk riding in a car would be a creative way to weave together the theme. So for the cake topper, I found a Lego chipmunk mini-figure and my oldest son built a car.

I thought about doing the base of the cake in different ways, but decided a tree stump was the most fitting.

My boys always request chocolate cake, so I’ve been making those for them since their second birthdays. For this cake, I made a three layer chocolate cake frosted with chocolate buttercream. As I was making the cake, my son came by and said that he looooved it so that was a sweet surprise.

Once everything was frosted, I added a few forest finishing touches including some chipmunks/squirrels figures we already had.

Party Favors

I made some chipmunk and acorn sugar cookies for guests to take home, and I also set out a basket of little cars for the kids. Just a little thanks for coming.

My son enjoyed his 7th birthday party and it was meaningful to incorporate his love of chipmunks, plus I didn’t mind the challenge of creating more of an original party since the pre-made decorations were lacking.

It’s still hard to believe that my littlest boy is already seven and growing up more each day. I hope these memories are the ones he’ll cherish for years to come!

Rejoicing in Hope,

Hannah