For my son's 2nd birthday, we threw him an "Elmo" party. For the invitations I got the basic Elmo one . I took some pictures of my son in an Elmo shirt surrounded by all of his Elmos (10 at the least!) and put two poses, wallet size, in each invitation for everyone to have a nice little suprise when they opened them. I also bought some Elmo labels preprinted with my son's name and address off of e-bay and placed them on the envelope. Also, on the invitations, I told everyone that it was an Elmo party so please wear red! That was such a fun idea, seeing everyone show up in red!!  Instead of a cake I made cupcakes for the kids. I bought the elmo cupcake holders and elmo decal faces from my local party supply store.  Then, for the adults I made a homemade pineapple, pudding, and whip cream cake, sprinkled with toasted coconut.  Everyone thought it was a great alternative to store bought cake. In addition to the other food and drinks we had, I bought the Elmo juice boxes for the kids.  I decorated with Elmo streamers, elmo table covers, and red and white balloons.  I also placed candy dishes on each table with miniature candy bars preprinted with Elmo labels.  They had the date, and a thank you message for coming to the party. The kids played outside and danced to Sesame Street themed music on cd. I drew and cut out a giant elmo from red posterboard and glued him to a white poster board. I used that as a decoration and then used it as a game for the kids to play pin the nose on Elmo!  I cut out orange circles from construction paper to do this.  Afterwards, I passed it around and let everybody sign it as a "keepsake" for my son's 2nd birthday. Also, for a game for the adults, I bought a fishbowl and filled it with the goldfish crackers, symbolizing "Dorothy".  I counted the crackers ahead of time and had everyone make a guess.  The one who came closest to the actual number, won the fishbowl and I gave them a bag of jolly ranchers.  After my son was done opening presents I passed out the Elmo goodie bags to the kids. I filled them with miniature bubbles and playdoh with preprinted elmo labels. I also put some elmo fruit snacks, candy, and crayons in there. And each child also received a wrapped gift from my son, an Elmo coloring book. I found these really cheap at my local dollar store (and they just happened to be Happy Birthday Elmo coloring books!).  And then to top the party off, we had a suprise guest. My son's birthday was a month before Halloween so, of course, for Halloween he was going to be Elmo. While everyone was still visiting I snuck my son in the house and put on his Halloween costume and then brought him outside for everyone to see him.  All the relatives and friends loved this!! You would of thought he was a movie star with all of the cameras flashing. I was going to rent the real Elmo adult costume, but I took my son with me when I tried it on, and he was scared to death.  This would be a smart thing to do if you plan on renting the real Elmo.  Anyways, I saved some money by not getting it and I think it turned out much better by my son being Elmo.  He loved all the attention.