A Sesame Birthday

In our house it's been a Sesame Street vs. The Muppets battle. Elmo vs. Animal. Cookie Monster vs. The Swedish Chef.

Ernie and Bert vs. Kermit and Piggy.

Matt and I are big advocates of limited screentime for kiddos -- I mean, we're not fanatical about it by any means -- and when we first had Elliott we thought, "No TV for this kid!" But soon that became, "Well, only the Muppets." Introducing Elliott to old episodes of The Muppet Show and purchasing the entire collection of Muppet movies was for purely nostalgic purposes.

(Puppets, in general, were a huge part of my childhood since my parents met as performers in a traveling puppet troupe. And for early and formative years of my life, I was carted around to their puppet shows. I wasn't allowed to watch many cartoons...but we lived for The Muppet Show.)

So, buying The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, and Muppets Take Manhattan filled me with giddiness. And much to our joy and amusement, Elliott fell in love with these movies too. On our road trip down to Southern California last summer, we had an endless rotation of DVDs to pacify our poor 18 month-old child stuck in his car seat for nine hours a day; we added in some Sesame Street DVDs and the boy was sold.

When I asked him about his birthday theme, the boy chose Sesame Street. I was a little sad because I wanted to plan a Muppet party...but I wasn't going to argue: The boy wanted Sesame Street and he was going to get Sesame Street.

We started with invitations. This time I decided to make handmade cards (skipping the easier computer designed cards that we did last year). And while I love these invites...my hands hurt sooooo much from punching out all those circles. Not to mention the gluing. So. Much. Gluing.

For the back, my brother found a cool Sesame Street font that you can download here. (Some fun ideas: I am thinking of using the font to make flashcards for Elliott -- or a memory game! But there are endless options.)

The birthday banner was fun to make; and in true Shelbi fashion, I made some of it at school. I printed of the letters at home and brought them to school to cut out -- after cutting out two letters, I thought, "I never have anything for my TA to do. She's sitting over there on Facebook. I'm delegating these scissor duties!" So, for the banner I recycled a Sesame Street book that Elliott demolished. He had effectively torn out almost all of the pages. So, I cut the book up and turned it into this banner!

Here is a closer look at one of the letters:

For food, I made Sesame Street cupcakes. After looking online for designs I liked, I just combined all the best features from several different people's ideas. The eyes were white candy melts and chocolate chips (held on with a bit of frosting); Elmo's nose was an orange peanut M&M; mouths were Oreo Cookies. Everything else was frosting -- although I wish the brown frosting I bought for Oscar's eyebrows turned out better. 

And we also had these AMAZING cookies. My cousin Christy -- who I hope goes into the cookie business very soon -- makes cookies for all sorts of events. Her talent is unparalleled; she handmade each of these Sesame Street themed cookies for Elliott. I wish I could have kept them forever, but I must admit that we ate all of them.

Here is our whole table set up. (Goldfish crackers for a "Dorothy-centric" snack? Awesome. But I did buy a fishbowl specifically for this purpose and now I have a fishbowl taking up space in my garage. So, if anyone has any other fun crafts for fishbowls...let me know.)

Want a fun way to create cups that match your theme? Stickers on cheap plastic cups works great. I thought they would look tacky, but they turned out super cute. 

So, besides the invites, banner, and the cupcakes, I didn't do quite as many crafty things this time around. But my favorite thing to make...not for any other reason other than the joy it brought to my child's face...was Elliott's party shirt.

I printed off an image of Cookie Monster, cut it out, and used it as a template on pieces of black and blue felt. While I originally wanted to topstich the felt on to the onesie, I was making this the night before the party and opted for the good old hot-glue gun instead. Add those googly eyes and it's a pretty darn cute Cookie Monster.  

And here is the birthday boy in his shirt, enjoying some cheese and crackers, and looking pretty adorable.