Griffin's Sesame Street Second Birthday Party :: Decor & Food

On March 6, my baby turned two. Two!

How did that happen?

March was a really busy month in our house. We had a lot going on plus we spent two weeks in Florida, which was glorious. We decided to hold off until April to celebrate Griffin's birthday. We decided to celebrate with a Sesame Street party since Griffin is all about Elmo, Cookie Monster, Big Bird, and their other friends lately!

One thing I was quite sure about this year was that I didn't want to have it at our house. We did that last year for his first birthday (which I really do intend to post about someday-- last year wasn't my best blogging year), and although it was a blast, I wasn't in a position to have a party at our house again.

We decided to have it at OZO Play Cafe. If you live in Cincinnati and have young children, I would highly recommend OZO! It was a perfect place to have a party. The kids were able to run around and play and there was plenty of room for the adults to visit. 

The chalkboard wall was all ready for the party! Jodi, the owner of OZO, did this herself. Isn't it fantastic?

I loved setting up this little station where our guests arrived. I brought my little chalkboard from home (I made it with chalkboard paint and a large from IKEA) and set up the balloon wreath. I recycled the wreath from Griffin's first birthday and painted a number 2 to sit inside of it. That wreath was a labor of love last year, but I think I will pull it out for his birthday every year whether we have a party or not! 

A few months ago, I'd found Sesame Street books in the dollar spot at Target, so I picked some up for party favors. I was planning on those being the party favors for Griffin's friends, but the day before the party, Target restocked the dollar spot with some darling Sesame Street cups! I picked some up, filled them with goldfish crackers (for Elmo's goldfish, Dorothy, of course!) and we set those out with the books. For the adults, we attached a "Me Love Cookies! Love, Griffin" tag to individual packages of Chips Ahoy! cookies. Who doesn't love Chips Ahoy?? 

I recycled Griffin's first birthday banner and hung that up as well. I highly recommend using the same color scheme for your child's first and second birthday parties. It made this year so much easier! I also used some of the tissue poms from his first birthday and created these Sesame Street characters. I loved how they turned out and they were so easy to make. I thought about doing a tutorial, but I just opened up a picture of their faces and used some card stock to make the faces. Easy peasy! 

I love our little birthday Elmo. One of my dear friends saw him at a shop and texted me to see if I wanted her to pick him up for the party. If you squeeze his hand, he says, "Happy Birthday!" He was the perfect addition to our pom poms. 

And how cute is that sign? I had been browsing Etsy for printable collections and came across Amanda's Parties to Go. I fell in love with her stuff and was planning on ordering. Then I found out that my friend Meredith had ordered her daughter's party printables from Amanda and had been so happy with it all. I was sold! I loved everything Amanda included in the package, especially Griffin's invitation. 

I really enjoyed putting decorations together for his party! The printable package combined with the primary color choices that are readily available at any craft store made it easy. This is a horrible set of pictures, but I made some easy decorative pieces with some primary colored tin buckets I picked up from the Target dollar bin. Yes, I'm borderline obsessed with the dollar bin. It was so helpful. 

I printed the large character faces onto adhesive paper and stuck them on a tin. I put some floral foam in the base of each tin, covered it with shredded colored paper, and then poked a thin wooden dowel into the foam. I printed and cut the personalized circular designs from the party package and attached them to the top of the dowel. They were a cute, quick addition to the food tables. The decor was one of my favorite parts of this party. I love bright, fun colors-- they're perfect for a birthday party! 

 We kept the food simple and did a lot of easy snacks. We ordered a Chick-fil-A nugget tray and had cheese and crackers. We put out some different kinds of cookies (including my mother-in-law's fantastic snickerdoodles) and my mom and I made cake pops. We had chocolate cupcakes in lieu of a cake and gummy worms for Oscar's worm, Slimey! Of course, we had plenty of Elmo's goldfish, Dorothy.

One of my absolute favorite parts of the party were the fruit and veggie trays. I'd seen an example on Pinterest and just knew that we had to have these at the party! My mom worked really hard to put these together. Didn't she do the best job? I couldn't get over how cute they were!

It was such a fun day with our family and friends! 

Up next? Pictures of the birthday boy and his party pals!