Sesame Street Party!

Whew! The past week has been nonstop.  It started the weekend before with Emmie's 2nd birthday, then Christmas festivities, and then I worked at the store on the second busiest shopping day of the year and this past weekend.  I'm beat.

It was all worth it, though, because Emmie's birthday was a big success!  Bruce and I did most of the preparations in advance.  There were a couple LATE nights there, which we anticipated.  He got the downstairs trim painted, and I got the house cleaned up.  My vision for the house is becoming a reality!  On the day of the party, we had plenty of help from friends.  It was great to have so many people who love Emmie in our house, celebrating.

The party was Sesame Street-themed, and much of my inspiration came from Pinterest.  I'm telling you, that website's rocked my world.  Long before I joined the site, I had read this blog post by Mom-101 about Pinterest parties vs. lazyish parties.  "That looks like a lot of work," I remember thinking.  But actually, it was fun to be creative!

Some of the decorations we got from Party City, like this life-sized Sesame Street wall art and banner.  Emmie was at eye-level with most of the characters.  We showed it to her as soon as she woke up, and she proclaimed with child awe, "This is happy!"  Our hearts melted.

For the goody bags, we bought crayons and coloring books at the dollar store.  We included a bag of Goldfish crackers and a note we made on the computer.  I searched "Elmo templates" online for the picture.  The note reads, "Elmo loves his goldfish, his crayons, too.  Now so can you!" Which is a play on the little song Elmo sings at the end of his show.  We also bought party hats for the kids.

One of my favorite features was the Oscar the Grouch garbage can.  Again, I searched "Oscar the Grouch templates" and printed one off.  Then I put our friend 8-Track in charge of wrapping the garbage can in aluminum foil.  He was chuckling the whole time he worked.

Bruce drew a Sesame Street sign on the chalkboard wall, and I wrote "This party brought to you by the letter E and the number 2."

From Pinterest, we also got the idea to arrange the fruit and veggies to look like the show characters.  We had a cherry tomato, carrot, and black grape Elmo.  Oscar was made out of broccoli and carrots for eyebrows.  They were cute, but as soon as people started eating, the faces were all distorted.  We also got an Elmo's World birthday cake from Target.  Emmie is obsessed the little toy Elmo, Mr. Noodle, and Dorothy that came on top.  The cake tasted good, too!

The most special piece of the whole Sesame Street birthday party was Bruce's gift to Emmie.  She needs art in her bathroom, which is decorated with rubber duckies.  He made her this canvas art with colored pencils and Sharpie markers.  When Emmie opened it (okay, when I opened it for Emmie), everyone clapped.  He did good.  Emmie loves it.

We didn't have to spend a lot of money to have a unique, special 2nd birthday party for Emmie.  The little touches just added to the joyfulness.  As parents, it was really amazing to see our daughter get excited about her birthday, and to know that we contributed to that.  Emmie had the best day, one she won't soon forget.  Even this morning, she was singing as she played with her Elmo toy, "Happy birthday to Emmie."

Happy birthday, baby.  Two years ago, when you were born, we received the best present ever.  And it keeps getting better!