I'm a terrible blogger. We had a great toddler party and I didn't take nearly enough photos. I will share the few I did take and resolved to do better next time.
So first, let me explain my party philosophy: Don't hide in the kitchen. Don't have an agenda. Don't spend a ton of money. And most importantly, have fun! So with that in mind, I set up some play centers around the house using our Seuss theme. My grandfather retired from Random House, so I have quite a collection of Seuss books. I gathered them together and put them with some of the alphabet toys we've collected over the years. Another area I set up (and didn't photograph) was based on "Mr. Brown Can Moo". I had my older kids bring the Little People barn out of storage and set it up with all of the farm animals I could find.
You can't have a Seuss party and not include a One Fish, Two Fish activity. (Shouldn't that be "an One Fish, Two Fish"? Grammar police, please help!) Using a tri-fold board (Dollar Tree - $1), a yard of flannel (Jo-Ann Fabrics - $3), and 4 sheets of felt ($1 for all 4 - Jo-Ann), I made a quick felt board. Most of the kiddos at the party were around 2 years old, so generally they pulled the fish off the board and giggled, but they had fun. If we hadn't had such awful weather for the weeks leading up to the party, I would have picked up a plastic fish bowl to keep the pieces in, but Mother Nature had other plans.
A Cat in the Hat bulletin board set worked as the backdrop for a table of yummy food that I forgot to photograph. (Pinterest has oodles of ideas. I went with quiche and small sandwiches since it was bunch and other kid-friendly snacks.)
Brown paper protected the train table nicely as it became the craft station. Since they were mostly toddlers, we did simple crafts. They put animal stickers on a zoo print out ("If I Ran the Zoo"), stars stickers on Sneeches, apples on a tree (apples = pom poms, "Ten Apples Up On Top"), and they made a cute Cat in the Hat craft.
Party favors are always fun, but of course I didn't take a picture. I was able to have a friend order a copy of The Napping House through Scholastic for a dollar a piece. I would have preferred a Seuss book, but that would have completely ruined my budget. I added Dr. Seuss pencils, crayons, erasers, and bookmarks all found in the dollar section of Target last fall. Wrapped them in striped tissue paper and voila - fun favors.
I hung streamers for Valentine's Day and left them up for the party. They initially looked something like this, but without the polka dots. (Check out this adorable birthday party theme):
After about 45 minutes, the kids discovered them and they very quickly became the best dollar I've ever spent on an unintentional party game.
Once they'd finally pulled them all down, they spent 15 minutes giggling and shouting "Hooray!" It was a wonderful end to a very fun party.
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