A few months before, I started planning my son's 2nd birthday. He loves the Sesame Street gang, and especially Elmo, so it was an easy decision for the party theme!   INVITATIONS: I started the fun ELMO theme with the invitations. Instead of buying invitations, I made them and printed them on heavy white stock paper using my computer. A few months before the party, we had some professional pictures taken and one shot was with my son holding Elmo, so that was the base for the invitation. Using pictures from Google Images, I was able to create a great card using sesame street characters and the saying was, Christian is Turning 2. Sunny Days on my way to Christian's birthday! Come and Celebrate". The invitations were very colorful and to top it off I got bright yellow envelopes (the same color as Big Bird) and used an image of Elmo on the address label and return address label.    DECORATIONS: So for the party...we had our son's party at our house in the backyard. Using red poster board I created a banner with the faces of all the characters and the saying "Do you know where Elmo is today Christian's Birthday". The banner was placed at the entrance of the party to greet everyone.  We had lots of colorful balloons all around for the kids. We had a game for the older kids and adults to play where they had to guess "How many Dorothy's are in the bowl".  I had filled a glass jar with goldfish and everyone had to place their guess to win the bowl of goldfish. I had printed all the Sesame Street characters from my computer and cut them out and had them as centerpieces for the table.  Plus I had Elmo and Sesame Street books all around for the kids. GAMES / CRAFTS: Since the kids are young and there were only 5 of them I kept the games to a minimum. They had fun with the games but I think they liked just running around better!!  The first game was "Pin the nose on Elmo" which all the kids loved.  Since they are just learning about body parts I had them stick the nose on Elmo's body(no need to blind fold them too young). It was a lot of fun.  The next part was a craft for the kids. Before the party I copied and blew up a picture of Elmo.  Then I cut out each body part with colored construction paper (red for the body orange for the nose etc) - two arms two legs body head eyes nose and mouth. When complete Elmo stood about 18" high.  I used fasteners to join each body part so each moved at the joints. I then put each body part and fastener in a folder for each child.  Their parents of course needed to help but the kids loved them!! FOOD: We had about 25 people so we had a 3' Italian Hero Vegetable Platter Pizza (Elmo's favorite food) Sausage and Peppers Ziti and of course snacks including animal crackers and goldfish for the kids.  I also got sesame street themed juice boxes for the kids.  CAKE: Instead of buying a cake I made cupcakes (chocolate cake and vanilla frosting) and a large cake (funfetti cake and vanilla frosting). For the cupcakes I went to AC Moore and bought Sesame Street scrapbook stickers put toothpicks on the backs and put them in each cupcake.  For the cake I made a sign saying "Happy Birthday Christian" had crayon candles and all the characters standing up with toothpicks (similar to the cupcakes).  Then I decorated the outside with red decorative frosting.   FAVORS: From Target I bought Elmo themed bookbags for each of the kids ($1.00 each) and bought each of them an Elmo or Sesame Street book ($1.00 each). I also had goldfish and a few other treats for the kids inside including bubbles playdoh cookie cutter crayons etc. Everyone had a great time and said the party was a lot of fun!  My son was so happy and got lots of presents and memories for a lifetime!! "