Jude's Second Birthday Party

We had a Monster themed party the day before Jude turned two under our church's new pavilion. We figured this was a good option rain or shine and also we didn't have to worry about getting the house super clean with a new baby. It was originally going to be just a monster truck party but in recent days Jude really began to also show an interest in Elmo and Cookie Monster from Sesame Street and also developed somewhat of an obsession with Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc. Since all of these things are "monsters," we just decorated with a whole variety of his favorite monsters.

Nana Johnson made monster truck outfits for Jude and all the brothers/cousins, I reused/reworked a lot of the checkered flag decor from James' race car party (before Joah was even born trying to get ahead), purchased a monster truck cupcake stand on amazon, we bought Elmo and Monster's Inc. plates (monster trucks are hard to find!), an Elmo Balloon, gave out monster trucks from the Dollar Tree as party favors, etc. I really started collecting a lot of these items before Joah was born, but even with all the preplanning it was still the most dysfunctional I had ever been when it came to a party. We were running late, I forgot the juice for the party, the wind was blowing over the checkered flag decorations (and plates and napkins), the photo banner that I repurposed from James' party was too short to hang between the posts on the pavilion so we couldn't hang it... And with a new baby I had to let go a lot of the little extra touches that I normally do like labeling food with fun, creative names and the like, but it was a good lesson for me. Although I really enjoy making everything super themey, Jude had just as good of a time without everything perfectly coordinating. We also were running late to set things up, so Stephen's parents and sister's family had to help us lay everything out when they arrived. Thankfully we only invited family this year, so it didn't stress me out as bad. Again, this was a good lesson for me. Perfection is not the goal! 

For entertainment they accessed the church playground right by the pavilion and we also had a Little Tikes bouncy castle set up. We tried to have some of Jude's favorite foods as well: pizza ("pats-a"), watermelon, chips, and different types of homemade cookies for our Cookie Monster. I also made Jude a homemade cookie cake which turned out really good, and it was super tasty! I think they had a lot of fun and napped well that afternoon!