I can’t believe another year has flown by!  Munchkin is about to turn 3!  His upcoming birthday reminded me that I haven’t even shared his 2nd birthday party, yet!  Oops!  I did share his Hole In One 1st Birthday party, and it was a huge success!  There were so many things I loved about his first party, such as the menu and the thank you notes.  But, our goal this party was to have a little less prep.  We knew early on that we wanted to have his party at the park – this kid LOVES to be outdoors!  (This meant not having to keep the house spotless while trying to prep for the party!) We threw around some ideas based on his favorite things, but we decided on a Curious George theme.  I checked around Pinterest and got some really cute ideas!  I wish I could have used all of my ideas, but I’ll just have to save them for another party. . .

Let’s start with the invitation!  I used Silhouette Studio to design these.  I LOVE how they turned out!  I downloaded a free image of Curious George with balloons.  This became our color scheme.  I also downloaded the Curious George font: Wrexham.  One of my favorite (and challenging) parts of designing invitations is font pairing.  There are some great ideas on Pinterest for this as well, but there is a never ending supply of font options.  Overwhelming, to say the least.  I just used Arial to go with the Wrexham.  It’s simple, and I chose all lowercase letters, which I thought was fitting for George.  

Curious Colton Turns 2!  Let’s Go Bananas!  This was the entrance to the park pavilion.  I used a chalkboard I already had and wrote some fun facts about 2-year-old Colton in the birthday party theme colors.  It got a little smudged on the ride from our house to the park, but I don’t think anyone minded 😉  I also made some George tissue poms.  Let me tell you, I went all over Atlanta looking for brown tissue paper.  I ended up at Hobby Lobby.  Next time, I think I’ll start there for party supplies.  That place literally has everything.  Tissue poms are surprisingly easy to make, and there are instructions all over the internet.  If you’re looking for one in particular, I used this tutorial.  I found the George face on PBS.org.  

We used Munchkin’s wagon to hold presents!  And, best part, we just rolled the wagon home after the party since our house is walking-distance to the park. 

We bought Munchkin a treasury of Curious George stories and asked his guests to sign it.  I didn’t get a close up of the sign, but it says “Someday when I’m older, I’ll be curious about who was here to celebrate with me!  Please take a minute to sign your name or leave a little message for our special and so very Curious Colton!”

The park pavilion includes a picnic table that we used for eating lunch and for crafts for the kiddos.  I printed out the same George face from PBS.org that I used for the tissue pom; these are actually meant to be a mask craft for the kids to make.  Hubby was so helpful and cut out a bunch of these so that all the kids had to do was fit the elastic to make their very own George mask.  We also printed coloring pages that the kiddos, especially the younger ones, could color.  Our last craft was decorating birthday hats!  Here is my niece modeling her finished product:

Isn’t she the cutest?!  (You can also see the birthday banner in the background; I couldn’t get a very good picture of this either.)

The park we chose has a lot of green space – perfect for letting kids run around!  I saw a cute station idea on Pinterest and decided the park would lend itself well to this set up.  We brought over the water table that Hubby built Munchkin for his first birthday.  We set up some balloons and beach balls to mimic Curious George Goes to the Beach.  We also set out the book just in case any of the kids wanted to read, but none of the kids slowed down long enough to read a story, and instead, the book was merely caught in the water crossfire.  We ended up moving it over to the pavilion to be part of the decor 😉  For the other station, we set up a tee with a ball and bat for Curious George at the Baseball Game.  All the kids loved the activities, but they didn’t pay a bit of attention to the book vignette.  Oh well!  Now, Munchkin has a few George stories for his personal collection 😉

We set out a couple other George stories that we already owned for a little bit more decor.  We also set out the favors for decor and for easy grabbing as families were leaving.  When choosing favors, I wanted to find something that the kids could enjoy that parents wouldn’t resent having to keep up with or that would just end up in the trash can by the end of the day.  I found Curious George coloring books at Party City.  I paired the coloring books with party favor crayon packs (for less than $1 a piece).  Hubby painstakingly tied each bundle with a little tag that said, “Thanks for going bananas with me!” (I thought I had a close up of the party favor bundles, but I can’t seem to find it!)  I think they turned out great, were inexpensive, and I’ve had several moms tell me their kids still love to color in that particular coloring book.  Winner!

The spread!  Hubby had the great idea to smoke a pork butt on the Big Green Egg.  He cooked it overnight so that it was ready to go at Party Time.  We shredded the pork for sandwiches.  I made my favorite BBQ Sauce to go with it:  Neely’s BBQ sauce (this is the same BBQ sauce we used for Colton’s Hole in One Birthday Menu – that’s how much I love it!)  We also served pinwheel sandwiches (Thanks to Costco!), a veggie tray, fruit skewers, and my mom’s recent party favorite – mac and cheese muffins!  The mac and cheese muffins are seriously a crowd pleaser, and so much easier to serve (and eat) than a huge casserole.  We also threw some banana chips in a glass bowl for a special treat!  For drinks, we served water, juice boxes, La Croix, beer and wine spritzers.  No one is going to go thirsty on our watch!

I’m so thankful my sister is a baker!  She offered to make cupcakes for the party (do you remember the awesome cake and cupcakes she made for Colton’s Hole in One Birthday?!)  She came up with the monkey cupcakes after doing some online research, and how adorable are they?!  On the cake table, I also borrowed my niece’s mini radio flyer wagon, stuck in a stuffed George and storybook.  I also made photo balloons of Colton’s 2nd year; they turned out pretty cute!

And, here’s the birthday boy in his monkey outfit made by his Mémé!  

Happy Birthday, Curious Colton!