Sesame Street Birthday Party

Last year for our son's birthday, we celebrated with an UNO party since he was turning one.  This year, we got into the Sesame street mood as he is now very much in love with all things Sesame street.  He loves the characters, the books, the songs, he got to see Sesame Street Live for his birthday present from my parents and although he has never seen the actual show on television, he doesn't seem to miss out on any of the Sesame Street fun!   Here is a glimpse into our party day decorations and festivities.

Front of his invitation was a photo from our day seeing Sesame Street Live

Back of the invitation was from a shot of him meeting Cookie and Elmo backstage.

Everyone in the family ordered some Big Face Sesame Street Shirts to wear at the party, we had Oscar, Elmo, Cookie Monster, Ernie, a shirt for our younger son with several characters, and then I fashioned together a Big Bird Suit for the birthday boy!

I decided early on what I DID NOT want for the party was to buy pre-made sesame street decorations like napkins, plates, balloons and so forth.  One of my favorite elements to our UNO party last year was using the bright colors from the UNO cards and creating our decorations and serving foods that were red, yellow, green or blue.  So for this party I wanted to bring the characters to life and focus on using the bright colors of Sesame Street.

Each of the six guests tables had a centerpiece and themed snacks.  This was probably one of my favorite two tables (Oscar the Grouch was another favorite and he is pictured below).  I made a Big Bird head using yellow balloons, I cut out his facial features from construction paper and made a nest for him out of a basket that I hot glued some twigs on and then filled with pretzel twists, and whole sunflower seeds.  He sat on top of a bright orange table cloth.  

Here is Oscar the Grouch, who by the time the party planning was over had become my favorite character. I didn't watch Sesame Street as a kid so I am just now discovering how lovely it is!  Oscar was so easy to make, maybe about 30 minutes in all and that included time of thinking what I wanted to use, how I wanted to make him and searching around for supplies!  He cost me under $4 to make and that include the Veggie chips (Green, Brown, Tan) that flowed out from his trash can.  I had a package of gummy worms to include in his trash can but I forgot to pack up them up!

Of course Cookie Monster seemed to be a favorite centerpiece with the kiddos and I'm sure it had nothing to do with the mini cookies spilled out on his table!  

If you haven't been around Sesame Street in recent years you may not recognize this little gal, Abby Cadabby.  She is one of our son's favorites characters and I love her bright colors so I just had to include her as a centerpiece.  She cost about $3 to make not including the Plush Doll.

 Of course, I couldn't forget Elmo!  He ended up looking a tad bit silly but Elmo is a tad bit silly himself ;)  He is made out of shades of red ballons, and sits on top of a homemade "crayon" box filled with goldfish crackers.  His box read "Elmo loves his golsfish" and "his crayons too!"

Ernie is enjoying his bubble bath with his rubber duckies.  How simple is this?  I had planned on making a head centerpiece for Ernie but last minute decided on this instead.  I really love how it turned out!  The organic seas salt popcorn was all gone by the end and I pretty sure all of the peeps were munched up!

I made about a dozen party hats for our little guests.  I had never made party hats before so it took a little while for my brain to figure out how to shape and staple and cut the paper but after I figured it out, it was a cinch.  I will definitely be making hats for future parties, so much cuter than buying them and the ribbon is so much nice on little faces than those elastic pieces!

Here is the Birthday Boy sporting his Big Bird outfit that I fashioned together for him this week.  I also made him an embellished Big Bird Party hat which he barely kept on long enough for the picture ;) 

Hooper's Store was a last minute addition that I made the night before the party to put on the table with the favor bag items.  I LOVED the way it turned out and gave a more authentic feel to our theme.  It had all kinds of goodies for each child to shop for.  Sesame street coloring books, crayons, stickers, granola bars, fresh fruit, and bubbles!

This is a favorite photo of Anakin sitting on his toddler couch with my laptop and phone pretending to be hard at work.  I wanted to include it in the party decorations so I placed it inside Hooper's store with a sign that read:

Every little one had his or her own personalized cloth shopping bag for gathering up their favors in either an Oscar, Zoe, or Abby themed bag.

My favorite favor was y homemade Sesame Street character crayons!  A friend of mine made homemade heart shaped crayons last year for Valentine's Day.  Her's were swirled in color and oh so cute!  I thought about trying that same concept with S.S. lollipop molds and it turned out perfectly!  I found these "Thank You" templates online and used that as a tag for my crayon bag.  We had Elmo, Grover, Oscar, Ernie, Bert and Cookie Monster crayons.  I recycled old crayons and crayon pieces from a big box at my mom and dad's house.  They still had it from back when I was little.  So my total cost was under $8 for both my molds plus the favor bags and I will probably resell the molds at a discounted cost.  These would be awesome favors just by themselves.  Can't top that!

 Some shoppers :)

Other activities included a "Library" of all of Anakin's Sesame Street books.  I loved the way this decorated the room and used items we already had on hand!

We also had a costume/dress up area. with tutus, hats, a homemade Count Von Count cape, a homemade Oscar the Grouch garbage lid hat and "Go Away!" sign, a few Sesame Street clothes from Anakin's closet and two Elmo/Cookie Monsters costumes that my mom had bought for the boys a few months ago.  We also had a bin of musical instrument toys for play.

Elmo (along with four live "Dorothy's") directed the guests to the restroom area.

Food time!  We are always determined to serve our party guests with nutrient rich and healthy fresh foods.  I saw a picture online where someone did a Cookie Monster and Elmo fruit tray which inspired me.  I made something similar and then included a Pineapple Big Bird, a Carrot and Pepper Ernie, a Cucumber/Broccoli/Celery/Mushroom Oscar, and a Black Olive and Purple Cauliflower Count Von Count.

This is a better angle of them that I took at home before I packaged them up to transport.  It is so much fun to use the party food as decorations and a much better idea than serving a sugary and fatty dessert cake.  What a fun Sesame Street Birthday Party Idea to encourage your guests to enjoy their fruits and veggies!!

In the middle of the food table, I framed a black and white photo of the Birthday Boy that I had taken earlier that week while we were outside playing ball.  I put words and phrases on the photo describing all of his favorites: foods, activities, people, book characters and more.  Then I scattered about 20 4x6 prints of the photo around so that guests could take one home with them.  Again, it seems the last minute details tend to be the biggest hits, I got a lot of comments about this and folks liked having a photo to take with them.

The end of the table included some Plant-Based Chili, three dips ("Oscar's Guac....Yuck!" that was served in a large washed out can that I used for tomatoes to make the chili, Homemade Hummus by Snuffleupagus and some sweet salsa) and some blue corn tortilla chips. 

I made a little sign as a play on Bert's famous paper clip collection to display in front of the chip bowl.

I think this was the only Sesame Street item I bought for the party, a GIANT 5 or 6 foot tall banner with the characters standing in front of the famous green doors of Sesame Street.  It also has a Happy Birthday Banner on top.  For about $6 it was worth every last penny.  It was a great back drop for photos and would like really neat on Anakin's wall at home.  You can see him here pointing out and naming the characters for Momma!

Photo time!  Bert and Ernie showed up at our party compliments of Gammy and a surprise to everyone else.  So we got a nice photo of everyone sporting their character shirts.

Another shot of the hubs with his family who all made a special trip in.

By the end of afternoon we had two little boys who partied til they dropped!

 Happy Birthday, my little one!