My youngest daughter LOVES animals.  For her second birthday, I wanted to tie in an animal theme and decided on Noah's Ark (definitely playing on the "two" part of it). However, most resources I checked for ideas on Noah's Ark were either for a baby shower, 1st birthday, or something to do with twins.  All activities and such centered around those occasions and really couldn't be used for a 2-year old.  I always hand-make my invitations, and this time created a pop-up ark invitation.  On the front with foam letters and animals, it said "Good things come in twos" and on the inside, there was the pop up ark with the party invitation information.  The best compliment I got on these was from someone who said "I hate to think about how much you spent on these invitations!" In May in Michigan, you never know what the weather is going to be.  We could not have asked for better weather. It was perfect outside, so all the kids could run around during any down-time (there were about 24 adults and 22 kids of all ages at the party). I got fun decorations from Oriental Trading, including animal print balloons, which were everywhere. Because of the different ages of kids, I had three activities that might appeal to them all.  First, I bought foam animal masks from Oriental Trading.  I got two sets so each animal had a pair.  I passed out the masks to the kids, told them to put them on and find their matching animal. I was pleasantly surprised that all of the kids really liked this activity, even the older ones!  They had fun with it and started making "their" animal noises, plus they posed for many pictures. The masks were part of their goody bags to take home. Another activity involved animal shaped cookie cutters. I made three disposable pans of a rice krispie type of treat (it had chocolate and peanut butter in it) and set them on a table with a bunch of animal cookie cutters all spread out. The children could pick the animal they wanted, then "punch" out their own treat to take with them (also a goody bag treat).  The final activity was a pinata, which we were able to do outside due to the great weather. I wanted to make a shaped cake, so I made four 9x12 cakes. I stacked three on top of each other and then shaped it into an ark.  The fourth cake was cut into pieces so that I could have a top portion of the ark, a roof, and a ramp for the animals. The ark was decorated with tan icing, the top portion dark brown, and the roof was green.  Details were done with white icing (port holes, windows, etc.). I bought plastic animals from a cake shop and placed them all around going into the ark, using a lion to go up the ramp. Goody bags included a little board book on Noah's Ark, animal water squirters, boxes of animal crackers, jungle animal fruit snacks, animal stickers, animal print pencils, and the masks and cereal treats from the activities.  Thank you notes were, of course, animal designed notecards.  It was the perfect day for a perfect animal-themed party!