Curious George Party -4yr- Monkey Tail Cinnamon Snacks

For my sons 4th birthday, we threw him a surprise party.  The theme was Curious George as he LOVED the movie. 

I started out by making the invitations.  The cover said, "Are you a little curious?" and had a picture of George looking inquisitive.  Then when you opened it, it was a full sheet of paper with a picture of a surprised George and beside that, letting everyone know the date, time, and that it was a surprise party.  The next picture was of George eating bananas in the back of a train car with words beside that one letting everyone know that we would be having dinner and treats. 

The last picture on the bottom was of George with a group of characters from the movie and the corrosponding words were inviting everyone to come join in the fun and games.  The back had the "show me the monkey" picture with RSVP info and letting everyone know that RSVP'ing was highly important for the guests with children attending. 

For the food, we served, monkey tails (breadstick dough rolled in cinnamon sugar, curled to look like tails and baked), bananas (peeled and cut into 3rd's) with grapes, punch and shredded chicken.  I ordered most of the decorations online including a CG pinata.  I had went on E-bay to find pinata fillers and found tons of CG stickers, bubbles, rings, small puzzles and sidewalk chalk!!  The rest was tootsie rolls and suckers. 

Upon arrival, every child received their party treats a personalized CG t-shirt (we made them ourselves from red, yellow and blue $3 shirts from Wal-Mart and iron transfer paper from Staples and pictures we found online-then went into a paintshop program and added the guests names before printing them out and ironing them on).  The children played like monkeys outside on the trampoline and jungle gym, ate, then for the pinata I had bought CG goody bags and passed them out empty. 

After the pinata was done, I passed around a marker for all of the parents to write their childs name on their bag to prevent meltdowns later!  We then had the birthday dessert.  Instead of cake and ice cream, I had found a recipe for banana split pie (layered as followed: graham cracker crust, vanilla ice cream, sliced bananas, drizzled with caramel sauce, whipped cream, sprinkles, drizzled with chocolate sauce, topped with cherries), it was a hit with EVERYONE! 

Our centerpieces for the tables were groups of 1 red, 1 blue and 1 yellow balloon (the colors we used for EVERYTHING!) tied down by 3 bananas for weights.  I had found online a recipe for the official Curious George Banana Bread (houton mifflin) which called for many dry ingredients, 3 bananas and 1 egg and butter.  Each family got to take home 1 of the centerpieces which had the whole recipe card tied to the bottom along with a jar that was decorated with CG stickers containing all of the dry ingredients. 

The party was a hit with everyone, especially Blake!  It was the first surprise party we have ever thrown for any of our children and it went over so well!  Especially by including a character he is so in love with! 

We can't wait for the DVD to come out-he was falling out of his seat at the theatre (all 3 times we seen it) from laughing so hard.  I still have some of the parents compliment the t-shirt and bread mix party favors every time I see them!