Kabir's 2nd Birthday Party

This post should have been created 2 months back in October, my favourite month of the year, when my dear son Kabir was born 2 years ago. As you all know, I had to go to India at the last minute and this party had to be postponed. The new date for party was set as Nov 20th, vs Oct 30th. I am glad most of the people could make it on this new date.

Invitation
The theme we decided on was Sesame Street as Kabir loves all the characters in it. The invitations were also made on the same lines. I had so much fun designing this card. Got it printed on a white linen card stock, and added a pop up Elmo on top. Then I backed it with an orange card stock to create a border.

After adding the border, this card was no longer of standard size. So I had to come up with this half envelope instead, and decorated it with balloons popping out.

Birthday Boy

Thats the birthday boy, my darling son Kabir, wearing his favourite character Elmo's shirt. It was created by a very sweet seller on etsy and she even customised it to add the number '2' on the back. I loved the way it turned out.  Kabir's hat is also made by an etsy seller. She covered this hat in her blog here.

Decorations

I have been wanting to make these tissue pom poms from a while now. I made 8 of these in all bright colors. This was the last piece to go up the wall/ceiling for the party, so I was dead tired and was thinking that maybe I took up more than I could handle. As I climbed the ladder with this thought, Kabir touched my feet and said 'Good job Mama'. That made it all worth it.

I wanted to make lots of bunting for the party. So I got patches of colorful fabric and rick rack trim. It was as simple as cutting the fabric into triangles and sewing it onto the lace. This was the easiest project I made for the party.

Cake
Birthday cake had to be a chocolate cake as Kabir loves it. I added tons of chocolate chips to it, just to make something special for the kids. For cake topper, I made an Elmo out of fondant. I thought it turned out ok, but when Kabir saw it, he said its 'Papa Elmo'.... lol .. I guess it was a little fat for an Elmo.

Cake Pops
Oooh.. I had so much fun making these Elmo and Big Bird cake pops. Got this idea from Bakerella. I wanted to make Oscar and Big Bird as well, but because of lack of time, had to stick to just these two, as this was the most time consuming. Its red velvet cake pops with yummy cheese frosting added to it.  It was big hit. Kids and adults all liked the pops.

Hats
I enjoyed making these hats in all the Sesame Street characters : Elmo, Cookie Monster, Abbey, Count, Bert, Ernie. I made these out of cardstock paper, and attached a ribbon instead of an elastic for each of these, as little kids were to wear it.

Other stuff on the cake table:

Chocolate Chip cookies from Cookie Monster

Elmo Juice Boxes

Candy and Ice Cream Buffet
The candy buffet had rock candy, big suckers, sixlets, cookies, M&Ms, swedish fish and alphabets and lots of ice cream. Kabir still asks for the leftovers from this buffet. He thinks that by merrily saying 'Trick or Treat',  he would be handed another candy.

Candy Buffet

Banners
These are all the birthday banners, signs and cake toppers I made for the party.

Cake Cutting
Kabir had waited for this moment for a very long time. He was so ready to blow the candles on his cake. But, he no longer wanted to keep his hat on, so Rohit and I wore one too, in desperate attempt to encourage him to keep his on.

Party Games
We played 'Pin the nose on Elmo', 'Oscars Trash Toss'(everyone's favourite), Big Bird's Journey to Ernie(with Easter eggs), Pass the 'Ernie' and Cookie Monster Pinata. Apart from this, there were kiddie tables and chairs where kids could color or play with playdough.

Goodie Bags
I decorated plain brown bags with Elmo/Cookie Monster on one side, and 'Thank You' note on tthe other side. These bags were filled with 'Bubbles from Ernie', Sesame Street drawing books along with some more goodies. I also made crayon rolls for all the kids at the party. For the kids at Kabir's daycare,  I made Elmo and Cookie monster pom poms from wool.

I loved putting this party together for my little cookie, and his reactions and "wow's" at each step made it worth it. 

Bedtime Stories Baby Shower

Nitika's Surprise Baby Shower

Its been a while since I posted, but thats because I was very very busy arranging a surprise Baby Shower for my dear friend Nitika. It was a combined effort by Anu, Deepti and me. As it was a total surprise, we booked a hotel meeting room in Duncan, for the shower. We stayed in the same hotel, the night before, and it gave us enough time to rest and start preparing and decorating the room. 

The theme, we 3 girls decided on was 'Bedtime Stories', and the color theme was Orange and Green. Here is the invitation and the favors designed by Anu.

We decided to use a canopy to create the bed effect and put matching sheets on the table which Deepti picked from Ikea. We also added a pillow on each table. Nitika can use this bed canopy around babys' crib later on as well. I made the matching banner going with the theme. Added the sleeping baby from the invitation to the banner. Deepti made the cute tissue pom poms below. 

The picture below is of the main cake and dessert table. It had cake, cookies, cake pops along with the decorations. For cake, we decided on chocolate cake, as its Nitika's favourite flavour. I decided to make the cake, and had fun making all the decoration on it.  I made a sleeping baby, and some books and a torch. Carrying the cake to Duncan was the most difficult part. Apart from some dents here and there, the cake made it ok on 2 flights to Oklahoma City and long drive to Duncan from there.

Red Velvet cake pops in orange and green were a big hit. I decorated the orange cake pops with green candy, and vice versa. It took so much longer than I anticipated, to decorate them, but it was worth it. Liked the overall effect. 

We really wanted to add toppers here and there to give a personal touch. But as there were no cupcakes, I just popped them along with the cake pops.  I made these toppers from printed card stock and die-cut butterflies I had from before. These were one of my favourite things.

I decided to make the cookies at the last minute. I had a baby feet cookie cutter in hand, and used that along with regular round one to make the cookies. I was planning to later pipe a button on the round cookie, but because of lack of time, I dropped the idea. 

We placed these colorful printouts in cute frames from Ikea all around the place. It really helped pop things up.

Food Table: We had some Indian snacks, salad and pasta along with regular chips and dip. Deepti got very cute matching paper plates and napkins for the party.

Just few hours before the flight, I made these orange circle decorations. I sewed together different sized circle cutouts in 2 shades of orange to make these.

As baby's gender is still unknown to most, especially to Dad (out of choice), I made the below door hangers(which ended up on the wall) saying 'Is it a Girl?', 'Is it a 'Boy'....

I made the food labels, and placed them with a toothpick on the fondant books that I'd made. I wish I had taken a better picture of it.

The Moment

Nitika was totally surprised. It was a nice emotional moment for all

Cutting of Cake

 Deepti, Nitika, Kabir and me. Anu couldn't make it to the party as she had a family emergency in India.

In the end, we played tons of games. Enjoyed each one of them. Pictures for few games are below..

Congratulations to Nitika & Sid, and Happy Parenting ahead.