Nursery Rhymes Party -1yr- Mother Gooses House

Mother Goose & Nursery Rhyme party   For my daughter's first birthday we shared a party with my best friend's son.  The kids were born less than 2 weeks apart and it was so much fun to plan this first birthday with a friend.  My friend's son, Jackson, had a Halloween costume of a spider and I had an outfit for my daughter that looked just like I would imagine Little Miss Muffet would wear.  We posed the babies like the nursery rhyme, Bailey, my daughter sitting on a little tuffet (a chair tufted with buttons) holding a bowl and spoon (curds and whey) and our little spider, Jackson, sitting next to her.  We kept the costumes in the back of our car, because babies are so unpredictable, and when they seemed happy enough we would dress them up and take pictures. 

We did this over a few play dates until we got the perfect picture we could agree on for the invitation.  I used Photoshop to add the Little Miss Muffet rhyme onto the picture and printed them out at Walgreens for 19 cents each.  I love pretty stationary and I found a really fun colorful retro stripe paper at the scrap booking store that I hand cut to make into a fold over card that fit into a standard invitation envelope.  I love details so I added another solid border around the photograph to really add contrast and make the picture pop.  I don't know if anyone notices those things, but I love having the really pretty keepsakes when the party is over.  Inside the invitation was a rhyme that read:  Bailey Rose and Jackson Cooper are turning one and it's totally super!   A party filled with nursery rhymes, Mother Goose and super fun times.  Please join us -  then it listed all the info.   

The party was decorated with tons of pictures of the babies together through out their first year of life, a wall and a half of pictures were of the babies funny out takes from their photo shoots as Little Miss Muffet and the spider, and illustrated Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Rhyme books were plastered everywhere.  I made a sign and picture on the front door that read: Welcome to Mother Goose's House!  We had the party during school hours and kept the party for babies only so the big sisters and their friends would not steal the show.  Of course we had our small family celebrations separately, but just wanted a special little party for the babies to get all the attention. 

We got a cake decorated with an image of various nursery rhymes and Mother Goose flying across the top by submitting an illustration that was printed onto edible paper and placed on the cake.   Another option would have been giving the picture of the babies invitation to print and place on top of the cake.  Since it was a breakfast we set up a buffet with French toast souffe and bagels with the accoutrements.  We found plates with animals that looked babyish and gender neutral with matching banners.   On the banners with the animals I added nursery rhymes that went with each animal and hung them around the room with the buffet table.   For instance next to the lamb was the rhyme Mary had a little lamb.  On the buffet table there were decorations that implied nursery rhymes: a clock with a mouse on top (Hickory Dickory Dock), a doll with a toy spider, and a boy doll with a candle stick (Jack be nimble).     

My parents generously let me have the party at their house which was set up with a very large play room where the actual party took place.  For entertainment we put on our own 20 minute Mommy and Me style class -we did not want to make it too long so the other guests could eat and chat while the babies played with the toys set out.   I dressed up as Mother Goose with a large pink cloak, tall pointy hat and rode in on a toy goose, of course.  The babies and mommies played along.  We started out by singing some nursery rhyme songs. 

Then I handed out solid color plastic Easter eggs with faces painted on them, they were filled with cheerios.  We used them to sing the  Humpty Dumpty song and let the babies eat the cheerios inside Humpty Dumpty while I pulled out a book filled with Nursery  Rhymes and read some to the children.  Then I brought out a parachute I purchased from Target.  We put the babies inside the parachute and sang more nursery rhymes to them while all the Mommies grabbed a handle and walked in a circle spinning the babies around.  Then we put them under the parachute and said the old lady who lived in a shoe rhyme. 

After the parachute I pulled out some play dough and we sang Patty cake and let them play with it for a little bit.  To end the show we turned on the bubble machine (you can get one at most toy stores for pretty cheep) and we sang twinkle twinkle little star and one little, two little, three little bubbles. I think after all the Mommy and me type classes I had been to I had the routine memorized.  My husband took a video of the class and it was very funny.   Also, since I was pretty close with everyone at the party I did not mind acting really silly for the party and the babies loved it!   

There were two take home gifts.  One was a little soft assorted animal magnetic picture frames from the dollar store at Target.  Inside each of the assorted frames I put a nursery rhyme that include the type of animal the frame was, for instance inside the bunny frame was the rhyme Little bunny Foo Foo.  As a side note when I was on the internet collecting all the various nursery rhymes it was interesting to see that there was always several versions for every rhyme.  The second take home gift was a CD with a compilation of over 30 of my friend's and my favorite children's songs. 

I made jewel cases with the photo from the invitation on the cover and titled it: Songs that are totally super from Bailey Rose and Jackson Cooper.  I included the list of the songs on the inside of the cover and on a colorful sticker label I made for each CD.  The children's CD included many nursery rhymes and we had one playing in the background of the party.  The CD was such a hit that friends who did not make it to the party are still asking us to get them a copy.  We took tons of pictures so our babies can appreciate this party when they are older.  It was so much fun to just watch how much fun the babies had during the little Mommy and Me style session and just playing next to each other that I had a blast!  For me its not just about the actual party it's the anticipation and all the fun planning up to the event that gets me so excited and I really had fun doing this party!