Owen turned 2 just a week after the twins were born. I was happy to do his birthday party – but the challenge was keeping the party centered on Owen – when newborn twins were in the house! Because they moved to a new neighborhood and Owen has no cousins (yet!) he was the only child at the party, but I wanted it to seem like a party and for him to have a wonderful time.
Since Owen loves Sesame Street, especially Elmo – it was easy to choose a theme.
Owen helped get ready for the party by putting stickers on the birthday hats – and his Dad’s shirt – and his sister’s sleepers! When I saw the problem with the elastic on the hats I replaced Owen’s by hole punching and tying pieces of yarn that tied it on under his chin
There were lots of people to pass around the twins, and happily – enough adults joined in the games to make it fun. Owen’s favorite game was “keep the balloons up in the air.”
We played race around the house with a cottonball on a spoon – Owen won!
We also played “guess how many cookies Owen wants” – Everyone predicted how many pieces of Cookie Crisp (sp?) cereal Owen would ask for. I got out the box and showed it to Owen, then asked him how many pieces he would like. The closest guesser got a mini candy bar – Owen got the cereal!
We also played a variation on musical chairs that I used in my classroom. I created these Elmo bags as prize favors – red bags were from Target, I cut eyes and noses from construction paper and folded the bags down so the eyes extended above the tops of the bags like Elmo’s eyes are up on his head. I put mini candy bars in one bag and played a Sesame Street CD. The players sat in a circle (EVERYONE wanted to play to get a candy!) and passed the bag around. If the music stopped when you were holding the bag you got to open it and take out a candy bar.
None of us had gotten much sleep that week so instead of really decorating a cake I found 2 Elmo cars and put them on top. He loved it!
In typical 2 year old fashion, Owen was so excited about each gift that he opened that it was really hard to get him interested in opening another. His Daddy got the idea to use Elmo as a prop to keep him going – it worked great!
Here are the prize bags – which also served as decorations for the party.
I used clip art on cardstock to make the sign that said Owen’s party is brought to you today by the letter O and the number 2.
I took some of the photographs from the party to make a birthday book to help Owen remember and talk about his special day.
Please click on the link if you’d like to see the book!
Kindergarten Nana 