A Seussical Birthday

We celebrated James' 4th birthday a week after his actual birthday.  We were out of town on his actual birth-day for a family parish retreat to the mountains of North Carolina (topic of another post.)  So we postponed his celebration to the following Saturday, and thankfully were blessed with a gloriously warm spring day.

As I mentioned previously, we chose the Dr. Seuss theme for his party for several reasons.  One, James is just about the silliest boy around, the true comedian on our family, so it made sense to have a completely silly and non-sensical party to celebrate his coming of age.  Two, I'd seen loads of Cat In The Hat parties across the party planning web, and had loads of inspiration to pull from.  It was a lot of fun to come up with fun names for the food, labels for the drinks, etc...  I wish I could go back and do it again!

I researched a lot, using not only party planning websites, but by reading and re-reading and pulling ideas from some of our favorite books.  At the end of the day, I'm not entirely sure who had more fun - the birthday boy and his buddies who got to experience the world of Dr. Seuss - or myself - who got to let my creative juices flow and craft to my heart's content.

Because there are so many details to share  and record for James to someday look back on and see just how crazy his mother is - I'm breaking this post up into several - starting with the party planning and pictures of the details.

Disclaimer - I borrowed so many ideas from so many websites that I can't remember whose idea came from where. 

Without further ado....

All food things Dr. Seuss:
Truffula Fruit Kabobs (from the Truffula Trees), Green Deviled Eggs and Ham and Cheese Sliders (recipe link to follow - DELISH from "Green Eggs and Ham"), Rainbow Goldfish (from One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish), Caramel Turtles (recipe link to follow - also DELISH from Yertle the Turtle), Cheese Balls (Sneetches Snacks - from the Sneetches and Other Stories) and Cat In The Hat cookies (totally ran out of time to properly ice them - so they ended up being sprinkled with red sanding sugar in stripes prior to baking.)



Pink Ink - from One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish - and bottled waters.



Red Velvet Cupcakes - Cream Cheese icing - blue cotton candy - for Thing One and Thing Two.

Yertle the Turtle's Caramel Turtles

I totally pilfered this poem from a website - but modified it for James.  Everyone who attended the party signed a copy of "Happy Birthday To You" as a keepsake from this party.

Deonne and I were able to snag a series of Dr. Seuss books from Books A Million for buy two get one free.  Everyone got to take one home as a memento from the party.

Lollipop Tree - with Thing One and Thing Two stickers (made by me.)

This was totally  my idea - bubbles for the kids with custom stickers "Big J little j what begins with J?  James' jolly bubble jar, J J J"



Properly festooning our deck with balls of color.  Also, I printed and matted quotes from some of our favorite Dr. Seuss books and Deonne nailed them around the yard (yeah, that idea was from another website.)



I ordered this ADORABLE shirt from a lady on Etsy.  So perfect.  So sweet!

Up next - the entertainment!