This weekend I got a bit distracted.  Because it was time to come and play, everything’s a-okay.  Friendly neighbors here, that’s where we meet.  I can totally tell you how to get to Sesame Street now.

It came to my house.

Kinley officially turns two today, but we celebrated her birthday this past weekend with family and a few friends that should be family.  We kept it pretty small.  While I usually keep my personal life out of my blog, this was too big a milestone in our family life and I had SO MUCH fun!

I used her collection of Elmo books and a sunflower bouquet from Publix for decorations.  Simple and cute!

I found an idea like this on Pinterest with cherry tomatoes and olives.

  I don’t like either enough for a tray so I used watermelon, strawberries, cantaloupe, fruit dip and chocolate covered almonds   I like ALL of these and so does Kinley (minus the choking danger of almonds).

I wanted to make a  Sesame Street birthday cake but was freaked out at the idea of ruining her birthday cake!  I saw this cake and fell in love!.

It was WELL above my box cake mix abilities, but I got smart.  Did you know they now sell something called sugar paper by Wiltons? I found some of it at Wal- Mart!
I hunted down the colors  I needed at either Wal-Mart or Michaels.   Each sheet was about the size of a piece of printer paper and was relatively cheap ($3-$4). At first I used a knife to try to cut out the paper, but then switched to a good old clean pair of scissors. It worked like a charm.
It was SUPER easy! 
At first, she wasn’t too crazy about it…
But then she got in on the action.
Here is a picture of the desert table.
I was afraid that the cookie monster would not be enough (and I would mess it up so badly that it wouldn’t be edible) that I ordered a plain chocolate Costco cake.  It was about $17 and had no decorations   So I used the rest of my sugar paper (they say it is edible  but I really didn’t want to give it a go- bugs are edible, too, and I don’t want to eat those either!) and enlarged a picture of Elmo on the computer.  I printed it and used it as a template to cut out the pieces.

I found these adorable gift bags on Pinterest (what did I ever do BEFORE Pinterest!!!?) and decided to try to recreate them for the party favor bags.

Here are my version:

They were pretty easy to make.  I found the bags two for a dollar at The Dollar Store( Steal!!). I used the die cut at school to make the eyes and noses ( black dot from an eye for the pupil, circle for the white eyeball and the inside of a zero for the nose).  This made is MUCH easier. I hand cut the mouths.  It was simple because I only made three- for Kinley’s two cousins and one for her. It would be a pain to make a bunch of these for a large party!  Here is the tag I made for the back:

A friend loaned us a Bounce House and it was a HUGE hit!!  I am so glad we had it!  It was the perfect size for three children.  I don’t think anymore would have fit!

She fell asleep right before we opened gifts.  She was literally awake in Daddy’s lap one minute, and out the next!   After an hour and a half she was back up and ready to go!

It was a wonderful weekend!  I think Kinley had a blast!  By the end of the party she was doing this:

I think I will be seeing this for many more years to come!