Fall Backyard Entertaining: Birthday Party

My dad's birthday is in September and so hosting his birthday party is always my first sign of autumn.  Plus besides my husband's birthday, it is the only other festivity I cannot go full force pink on.  So each year I use the upcoming season as inspiration for the decor.  

I used all my plushy pumpkins and other fall decorations along with leaves from the yard to create the table centerpieces.

I then used inspiration from our MOMS group to write phrases with a sharpie on butcher paper.

I loved the look with the simple brown paper and pops of color for the pumpkins.  It screams fall in a sweet subtle way that I think would make for a darling Thanksgiving table.

I usually use a combination of my white vases and serving wear for flowers or plants but this time around I grabbed only glass containers.  It was a simple but new way for me to change things up.

I even dressed up the porch with our yard boots and a couple of fake white pumpkins.

I always love the long table that feels like we are eating family style.  We have four long rectangle tables.  Using one for food, the other three fit twenty people.  If we have guests under that, I usually prefer this setup to the round tables as it makes for more of an intimate setting.

For the food, we did a similar table setup using the brown paper with the food labeled.

We were coming off a busy week so I planned an easy menu that could be made in bulk and planned ahead.  So we ended up serving a pasta bar with spaghetti and meatballs and chicken alfredo.  We also have electricity that runs to our back garden (that we used for our old backyard light setup) which allowed us to plug in the crock pots outside before guest arrived.

For dessert, my dad loves peanut butter so I made yellow cupcakes with chocolate chips and mixed some peanut butter into store bought cream cheese frosting.  All I have to say is that frosting was amazing.

It was a wonderful evening of family and friends celebrating my sweet dad and kicking off this beautiful fall season.  That is something that I most definitely am thankful for.