Party Recap...

My daughter is in love with the cartoon series on Nick Jr called Olivia, based off the book series by Ian Falcone so it was only necessary that we do an Olivia themed party for her 2nd Birthday. Unfortunately Olivia is not incredibly main stream yet.. getting there but hasn't made it to party decor so I really had to get creative with this party. I kept the party colors in Red, White, and Black to stay true to the cartoon and book series. The nice thing is, is that her birthday falls on Thanksgiving weekend so I had lots of Red and White options due to Christmas being right around the corner. I hand crafted most everything from the custom cupcake sleeves made from scrapbook paper and a free template off the cake central web site, Birthday bunting, door sign, cupcakes stands made from Holiday hat boxes, and even toddler sized Olivia's for photo props! I had kids from all ages from 2-12 at this party so I had to keep the activities fairly simple. I purchased some stadium balls (beach balls) from the party store for a $1 each and let the kids run wild with about 20+ of them! It was nice enough outside to let them run wild after they loaded up on sugar so we tossed them and the beach balls out in the backyard and they ran around like crazy burning off all of their excess energies! Seriously beach balls are the best party activity for toddler/preschool age... they are pretty much impossible to get hurt with and if you have tons it makes it like a jumbo ball pit. Indoors we had kids tables lined with Olivia coloring pages printed from the Nick Jr web page (it's free and every kid loves to color!), toddler tunes from one of the music channels on the tv for dancing and lots of photo props for the kids to pose next to or in! I painted these photo props on giant foam boards that were 50% off @ Hobby Lobby... so this was also an inexpensive fun party idea! We did cake and cupcakes but the real hits of the dessert bar were the Giant Olivia sugar cookies and the Red, White and Black cherry flavored Whirly Pops. The activities were simple enough to let the party run it's own course and the kids all seemed to be having the time of their lives! The report from all of the parents including my own child is that they fell asleep super early that night from all of the fun. Happy birthday Bailey!