For my son's 1st birthday I used the Sesame Street theme and ran with it.  He loves not only elmo but mostly all the characters.  His invitations were cutom made (through EBAY)and it read JAKOB's 1st Birthday on the Sesame Street sign along with brought to you with the letter J and the number 1 and as a background it had a picture of him with the whole sesame street on the back because I really wanted to emphasize on Jakob's world I created an carnival type environment throughout my house.  In the front I had the life size elmo and big bird holding a sign I made that said Welcome to Jakob's World with alot of balloons.  I also placed a 3 combo sesame street jumper in the front yark along with a sesame street building tent I found on Amazon.com and a Sesame street balls tank also found on Amazon.com.  This was great because it allowed all the kids to play in one area and gave the little kids and older kids things to do. As you entered through the house I had sesame street music playing at all times I bought the 35 year CD from Sesame Street.org in the back I had a carnival type setting with concession stands of hotdog nachos cotton candy ice cones popcorn  For the adults I ordered subway sandwiches with salad. I had the character ballons throughout the insde of the house and front and back yard.  I had kids tables set out along with adult tables.  The centerpieces was dorothy (goldfish) and inside the bowl I placed a sign that said Jakob's World with Elmo Jumping and a Sesame Street Sing on top.  This tied everything together.  I used the centerpieces as prizes for the kids that won the games. It was great.  The games consisted of an egg hunt with the winner being the one that found bert and ernie; pin the nose on elmo; big bird says; guess who many dorothy cousins are in the bowl (i bought the little gold fish about 50 fo them and put them in a bowl). I rented a big bird elmo cookie monster and oscar the grouch costume had my high school aged sister and her friends dress up as the characters and play with the kids along with coordinate the games. It was much less expensive then contracting the character for an hour and we didnt have any kids that got scared. Since I had concession stands I asked the grandparents and aunts to help out. I made shirts that had the same Jakobs World logo printed in the front of a red sleeve baseball jersey and in the back in red STAFF.  For dessert I had a 6 tier cupcake cake stand.  Each layer was cupcakes of each character (elmo big bird cookie monster grover oscar the grouch) the last tier was a small 3" cake made for Jakob with his very own #1 elmo candle.  I found a sesame street jello mold on ebay and made jellos of the characters with each correspnding color (elmo was red; big bird was yellow; cookie monster was blue and oscar was green) I also ordered 3" candie apples and printed out stickers with the Jakob's World logo and placed it in front. For drinks I had sesame street water bottles (from babies r us) and sesame street juices from Sam's club.  I had 2 pinatas one for the little kids with gerber finger treats; pacifiers; bibs; and things babies would like and another pinata for the older kids with candies they would enjoy. Inside the cookie bags I placed a sesame street coloring book an elmo rubber ball an elmo pencil candies; and personalied bubbles (I removed the prior label and used the same stickers I had used for the candie apples with Jakobs World).  The bags themselves were red gift bags but I had added labels outside that said Jakobs world to tie the theme together and put tissue paper inside so the kids felt as if they too got a gift. The party was huge success. I recieved 2 calls if they can get the referral information on the character (my sister and her friends) because of the sesame street skits they did and invovled the adults.  "