Eleanor's Birthday Party - "Stesame Street"

Pardon the blurred out invitation...what is missing is the address first and then my phone number...

I couldn't have done it without them!
I had so much fun with Pinterest and the many episodes of Sesame Street that we watch as my inspiration planning Eleanor's 2nd Birthday Party.  With the help of my amazingly crafty sisters, we pulled it off.  I am working on finding better pics so I apologize if some are blurry to start.  We were fortunate to have our apt. clubhouse to use at no charge because the party was during the day.

Backing up a bit - I tend to get carried away in buying smocked dresses, especially cupcake birthday dresses.  Right after Eleanor turned 1, I found the perfect dress for her second birthday party which I thought, instead of doing pastels like her 1st bday, we would do bright colors.  Little did I know, she would be old enough to decide she wanted a special theme for her bday.  SO my challenge was to create a Sesame Street Bday which would usually be primary colors and transform it into a bright color scheme.  Thanks to Michaels, JoAnns, Party City, and Market Street's perfect die match to Eleanor's dress, we pulled it off.

The inspiration - the dress

The party was at lunch time so we of course had to serve lunch.  For the kids, we had chic fil a nuggets, Eleanor's favorite, fruit kbobs (pineapple, strawberry, and grapes), apple sauce pouches, Juice Boxes, and Elmo's Goldfish (Dorothy) - or just goldfish.  For the adults, I bought a teryiaki sauce at Costco and added orange zest, garlic, orange bell peppers, and some orange juice to a marinade for chicken kbobs. The grill wasn't working well so they got a little charred.  I served them in mom's chaffing dish and with them we served asian slaw, and chips and guac with homemade salsa.  FYI I also add a bunch of cilantro chopped to the food processor, use agave nectar (drizzle) instead of sugar, and lime juice to this salsa.  We served Shiner Family Reunion and "Oscar's Trash Can Punch" - White Wine Sangria for the adults to drink.  Once again used agave nectar to sweeten instead of what it called for.  This baby was potent let me tell you :)

When you entered the party, you were greeted with a table of Sesame characters and an ABC Sesame Street Board Book for Eleanor that also served as a guest book.  We loved reading what people wrote and Eleanor will always be able to see who came to her 2nd bday party!

The dessert table showcased most of the themed food items along with the basis of the favors.  My sweet sisters, Mary and Katie, painted the buckets to look like Sesame Street characters and in each was some crinkle at the bottom, a Sesame Street book, a shovel (for digging into the candy jars), and a note from Eleanor.  The note thanked her friends for coming and reminded them which activities to see while at the party and what to add to their bucket to take home as a favor.    Some of the highlights of the dessert table were - Abby Cadabby's Magic Fairy Wands (pretzel rods dipped in white candy melts and covered in sprinkles), Bert and Ernie's gumballs, Oscar's Dirt - see if you can find "Slimey" his worm, Cookie Monster's Cookies (my gooey chocolate chip cookies halfway dipped in dark chocolate candy melts and covered in dot sprinkles), and Big Bird's "Radar" Gummies (Big Bird's bear is named Radar).  It also had her cupcakes which I broke down and bought this year from Market Street but did make the cupcake sticks on my own.

Some of the activities included Cookie Monster's Cookie Dough Station where the guests played with mini playdoughs and got to take them home and Ernie's Bubble Bath where the party guests got to hunt through packing peanuts (bubbles) to find one of Ernie's rubber duckies to take home.  We put this in Eleanor's splash table and it worked perfectly!  The kids loved it!

The girls especially enjoyed Abby and Zoe's jewelry box where they had so much fun finding bracelets, necklaces, and glitzy sunglasses to wear and take home.  As you can see Belle went to town!

 

Hallie, Annabelle, and Katie enjoying Elmo's goldfish

Eleanor and "Kate" as she calls her...

Eleanor loves Garrett!

Some more of the decor...

 Eleanor was so blessed to have both her grandparents, the sweet Klement family, ALL her aunts and Uncles (Uncle Matt came a little later), my room mom, Robin, her dear mom, Nana, and a sweet student of mine, Tanner, and almost all her best friends in attendance (Reese came the weekend before to celebrate and a few others had their birthday parties at the same time).  We had such a fun time and Eleanor was so tired afterwards she conked out on my chest with a gummy in her mouth.  This was following a pretty bad fall after which she proceeded to do her thing where she gets so worked up she stops breathing but she survived and was ready to go onto Katie's 2nd bday party later that afternoon.

Marmi and Pop Pop

Grammie and Grandpa

Aunts and Momma

Momma loves her girl - I coordinated with bright pink pants

Dada coordinated with his bright blue shirt - you know how I love the matching!

My dear bosom friend and her sweet husband, Jason, and girls, Hallie and Annabelle even got to come from Houston!

We were so excited to have the Dibbles come and it was so cute how much Luke loved Sesame Street too!

The Klements are so special to us!  They often help out with Eleanor as I used to babysit them years ago!

The Jones Family came to play!  Eleanor loves Garrett and Lyla!

I just love this girl! 

Ready to open presents!

She was showered with precious dresses, fun toys including a gardening set, a cozy coupe, vacuum and other cleaning supplies, puzzles, books, a grocery cart, stroller, lawn mower, Aggie chair, and CD player with microphones just to name a few.

After presents we sang Happy Birthday and once again helped her blow out her candles.  She had so much fun eating her cupcake - Mommy had fun using makeup remover to get the icing die off!

        

And yes once momma had seen she was given her cupcake - the dress did come off...