Dr. Seuss Party!

June 04, 2013

Dr. Seuss Party!

I'm finally getting around to posting about Harper's party. This was a ton of fun for me to plan because I love Dr. Seuss. I'm pretty sure I had just about every single one of his books as a child and my mom saved them for me so now my kids are enjoying them, too. It was also a convenient theme to go with since I decorated the playroom in Dr. Seuss colors and could borrow some decorations from in there.

Of course the most exciting part of the party was getting to celebrate this sweet little girl who is quickly becoming a sweet BIG girl. Words cannot express how thankful I am that God knew we needed her even though having another baby wasn't even on our radar at the time. I can't imagine how empty our life would be without this little firecracker in it! Sorry for getting all cheesy but it's so so so true. Oh, how I love this precious girl.

And now, on to the party details!

I made the invitations using my cricut and Microsoft Word. I didn't want the party to be too "characterish" so I stuck with the classic Cat in the Hat and mixed in fun colors and prints and fonts. I decided to ask for no gifts with an option to bring a book for donation. I know a lot of our friends get invited to a lot of parties in this season of life and that can get expensive and I didn't want people to feel burdened...we just wanted people to come and hang out and have some fun. Not to mention we have way too many toys as it is. Harper LOVES to read so I thought this was the perfect compromise. She got to open them all and read them a few times before donating them to the hospital where she was in the NICU.

I made an easy and really inexpensive door wreath. I used the idea off of Pinterest to duck tape a dollar store pool noodle for the wreath form and then I just tied leftover tulle from her tutu around it. I had the "2" from Harrison's party last year and just had to spray paint it to match the theme.

The entry table held a few pictures of the birthday girl, the party favors, a book for guests to sign, and some photo booth props.

I found a mustache mold on Amazon and bought some yellow candies to make Lorax mustaches for the party favors. Then I just made some tags in Microsoft Word and printed and cut them out. They say, "Before you must dash grab a Lorax mustache. Thanks for coming to Harper's big bash!" I found this website that has different Dr. Seuss characters with word bubbles.

I am ridiculously sentimental and loved this idea to have guests sign the Happy Birthday to You! book by Dr. Seuss. I saw some cute downloadable printable files on etsy for the sign but I am cheap so I just made all my own in Word. It says, Wait! / Stop here, you see / and write a little message to me! / A birthday wish from a real swell pal / to a very special / two-year-old gal! / On the front, the back, / or on any of the pages / it's something I'll treasure / for all of my ages! / Mayor Harper

Sidenote: I'm sure there are other easier programs to design printables but I have Word (and all of it's silly quirks) down and didn't really feel like taking the time to figure out other programs. If any of you are planning a Dr. Seuss party and would like any of the printable files I made just shoot me an email and I will gladly share them with you for free. :)

Above the food table I decorated the mantel with some quotes from some of my favorite Dr. Seuss books. This window I picked up in Canton last year has gotten a lot of use so far. :)

Now onto food and drinks. This part was tons of fun! Here was the menu:

*Green Eggs & Ham (green deviled eggs and poppyseed ham & swiss sliders) - from Green Eggs and Ham
*Brown Bar-ba-loots (chocolate teddy grahams) - from The Lorax
*One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, {Goldfish} (rainbow goldfish crackers) - from One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
*Yertle Turtles (caramel turtles) - from Yertle the Turtle
*Hop on Pop{corn} (popcorn) - from Hop on Pop
*Lorax Cookies (decorated nutter butters) - from The Lorax
*Poodles Eating Noodles (macaroni salad) - from Fox in Socks
*Yink's Pink Ink Drink (pink lemonade) - from One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
*Beezlenut Splash (sprite with blue and red jello) - from Horton Hears a Who

A word of advice: if you ever make a Lorax cake with truffula trees, add the cotton candy at the very last minute because it completely melts within an hour or two.

Here is the drink table:

I made labels for water bottles using this tutorial from Sarah's blog. She always has the cutest and inexpensive craft projects...and not to mention she is a fellow Okie and is super sweet and has two adorable kids...so you should probably go check out her blog. :) I used Word instead of PowerPoint for my template but followed the same measurements. They were easy peasy!

For activities to keep the kiddos entertained, I decided on coloring pages (I just printed off free ones from google images), a truffula tree planting station, pin the hat on the cat game, and a photo booth for families to take silly pictures.

Funny story about the pin the hat on the cat...I couldn't find a poster anywhere so I ended up just drawing it with pencil and then going over it with a sharpie. I finished it up and was pretty proud of myself because drawing and art has never been my strong point. I asked Harrison if he thought I did a good job and his response was Well, it looks a little good, but not a lot good. Next time you should remember to draw his hat. LOL!

And now for the picture dump of all the fun that was had!

At the end of the party, Harper decided she wanted to wear my shoes instead. This girl has a serious infatuation with shoes!

And as if I haven't uploaded enough pictures to this post yet, I figured I would add the ones with the photo props, too. I plan to print them out for each family and send them with the thank you cards. And considering that the party was over 3 weeks ago I guess I kinda need to get on that. ;)