I love the whimsy, colors and silly rhymes of a Seuss story. The kids are right there with me. Blue would have us read Hop on Pop every day if we'd agree to it. All have loved Mr. Brown Can Moo Can You? And The Grinch (as played by JIm Carrey) is a hero in our house.
But I've never done a Seuss party.
It was time.
(How can this be? Our youngest thing will be three?!)
A person's a person no matter how small.

(This is a small hay wreath, plastic left on, with about 1,000 mini water balloons (or so it seemed!) pushed in with greening pins - about 8 balloons per pin. I used two boxes and a few pins from a third box but I still didn't get to the outer edges. The sign is card stock, took the Cat in the Hat pic off the internet, ran ribbon through the top and then I pinned it into the wreath - I figure I'll just change out the sign and use for different events as needed.)
The most fun aspect of a Seuss party is the decor!
From there to here,
from here to there,
funny things are everywhere!

Grinch in the entryway! And The Foot Book is there because I had six blue foot prints taped to the floor with words: Left Foot. Right Foot. Feet! Feet! Feet! How many different feet you meet!
Just past the entryway, this "welcome" table:

The "runner" is just wrapping paper. The basket was for donations. It was nicely full by the end of the party! And on the other side we had Seuss's Happy Birthday To You as a guest book.

The message on the sign reads, "Wait, Mate! Stop, Pop! Here is the place for you to drop a birthday message or simple, "Hi," for our very special birthday guy! Write on any of the pages something Toby can treasure for ages! Just grab a pen or maybe ten (if you think you'll need a lot of ink) Then get to signing this guest book, Friend!" The pen holder is just a tin can covered with paper with ribbon around it.
Our dining room is to the left of this and there sat the dessert table!

On this table: Red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and blue cotton candy, mini chocolate cupcakes with frosting and red life savers, jello parfaits, strawberry and marshmallow kabobs, and Oreo Hat in the Cat cookies.
Runner is more wrapping paper. Stuffed Cat in the Hat was so on sale at Target I couldn't resist. Spoon holder is another tin can covered in paper and ribbon. Kabobs are also in paper-covered tin cans, the skewers are stuck into flower foam covered in tissue paper.

I couldn't get my Thing Three circles (internet image I put at 12 to a page and miraculously printed at the exactly right size for my circle punch) to stick to the cupcake paper so they just got tossed about. Oh, and the cotton candy starts to dissolve after awhile so it has to be put on at the last minute.


The red layers are just strawberry jello. The white is panna cotta as explained in this recipe. I made these throughout the day on Friday and gave each layer many hours to set. I meant to add a dollop of whipped cream to the top, but I always make this fresh and just ran out of time. Once guests start arriving I'm done. (Otherwise I could tinker and add... oh to infinity.)
Enter the kitchen. On the counter sat drinks. Just soda and well, this:

(pink lemonade and citrus seltzer)
Also on the counter was this:

Maybe the live prop idea wasn't such a good one. This poor 'lil guy didn't end up living long enough to be named. Sigh. I kinda wanted to have a gold fish too, but then Kevin told me how often the pet shop guy said we'd have to clean the bowl and just like that I'm over it.
In the breakfast nook sat the food table with red and white streamers behind and Foo-Foo the Snoo (from I Can Read with My Eyes Shut) looking on.

Foo-Foo closer up:

The pic above her has pages from Oh the Thinks You Can Think covering what's usually there. I had an extra copy of this book so pages of it were used over other pictures in a few places in the house.
Along with Foo-Foo and food, we had a Yottle in a bottle?!

(from There's a Wocket in My Pocket.)
Menu was this orzo salad (recipe doubled), gold fish, green eggs (no ham for our veggie family), and some puff pastry spinach things from Sam's.



Streamers are the best.
Moving into the living room...

And over the tv I had some quotes, but that was it for this room because it was needed for the Kindermusik class we had. I told the instructor about the Seuss theme so she brought Seuss's ABC Book and read that too. Toby loves My Gym circle time, so I knew he would be into the Kindermusik hour we planned.
I was right.





I know he isn't smiling in these pics, but he was very intent on doing what the teacher was doing and even though it was an HOUR, I'd say, he was the one who stuck with it the best!
Blue loved it too.

So did my Mom.

(She's holding my niece and singing, "Move on back," from Wheels on the Bus.)
Meanwhile Kaden was outside with another little boy his age.
So... onto outside fun.
It's opener out there
in the wide open air.
We had a Splash Zone, Lorax Garden around our sand box, and a table on which I drew cats for kids to color and add hats. Oh and juice boxes and ice pops.

(The balloons, filled with water and frozen, served as ice. On the other end of that ribbon I tied on scissors to cut the ice pops.)
Lorax Garden:

I drew The Lorax and one barbaloot.I had four bags of colored sand sprinkled around and filling three flower pots that had big, fake polka dotted gerbera daisies in them. I bought new kids gardening tools for the sand box and made six Truffula trees. Four were made out of PVC, spray painted and held up by re-bar and two were drawn on paper and taped to the fence. All the tree top tufts were made out of tissue paper.

My nephew digging in. (This photo cred goes to his mommy!)
In the "Splash Zone" we just had a kiddie pool, water balloons and those splash-bomb water balls, bubbles, and a target made out of cardboard and spray paint mounted on the fence as a possible place to aim balloons and balls.

Toby and his cousin, Chloe. (Colton's twin sis)
And the coloring table:

I loved my little bud vases (caper jars spray painted white with red tape rings) but having water on a paper table covering wasn't the best idea because the wind blew them over.

See the spillage :-( For these cats, since I needed them mass produced, I printed up a pic, drew over it to make it darker and then traced. (All other Seuss creatures were free-hand.) Even with some wet spots, there were plenty left for coloring.

And a few final touches:
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose!
We had come paper hats from the teacher supply store:

And even places that didn't look as I would have liked, I made it work...

(The week of the party Kevin cut these big, beautiful bushes down to nothing but sticks and then, as soon as he was done, thought, Faydra is going to kill me.... Faydra considered it, but came up with a different solution.)
I made a playlist consisting of birthday songs, music from Seussical the Musical, music from The Lorax (my kids cannot get Let it Grow out of their heads), a few Jim Carrey Grinch monologues, and rounded it out with some of our general kids music favorites. I also found, when searching for "Seuss Music," a song called Dr. Seuss by Trever Hall that I really like.
Today you are are you, that is truer than true.
There is no one alive who is youer than you!
It was a perfect Toby party. Lots of food and friends and fun, but he never really clued into the fact that all the hubbub was about him. We didn't do a candle blowing out time or have any moment where he was on the spot. We did sing "Happy Birthday" but it was at the end of the Kindermusik class, so it was just another song to him.

(another Marissa photo cred for this one)
Great day.