Dr. Seuss Party -1yr- Seuss Trivia

Decorations:   Along our walkway I posted 4 signs.  I used wire coat hangers that I straightened with pliers for the posts.  Then I cut out some freeform shapes (sort of like the trees in The Lorax) on bright colored paper. I taped these and some heavier paper (cardboard from cereal boxes worked well) to the back and to the tops of my posts.  On each I pasted one line from this stanza from the Cat in the Hat: I know some good games we could play, said the cat. I know some new tricks, said the Cat in the Hat. A lot of good tricks. I will show them to you. Your mother will not mind at all if I do.  I checked out a bunch of Dr. Seuss books from our public library.  I tried to choose the ones in the cleanest, best condition.  Two to three of the most popular titles were stood and propped open as centerpieces on the food and drink tables.  The rest were placed around the house randomly, also standing up.  I wanted people not only to see the covers, but also be able to pick up and read if it struck their fancy.  There are two more pages in his book titled Happy Birthday to You!  That make good signs if you have a color copier.  We put up the one with the picture of the cake on the front door and the one where the bird talks about presents above the gift table.  I just happened to have some plates with Seuss drawings on them.  I put them on the mantel on plate display stands.  I also copied some Wockets (There's a Wocket in My Pocket), colored them in different colors, and placed them in funny spots around the house.  One was peeking out above a switch plate, one above a framed picture in the hall, one coming out upside down from a lamp shade, etc.  

Food:   The cake was our main focal point as you walked in the door and centerpiece of the food table.  I made the Cat in the Hat's hat.  It was 5 layers.  Layers 1, 3, and 5 were iced in red with pink cake inside, and layers 2 and 4 were done in white.  I purposely sloped it to make it look like it was leaning.  In between the stripes I piped a thin line of black icing with a little bit extra to look like Seuss shading technique.  I used a large round platter as the brim of the hat and just iced that in white too.  I baked the cakes a few days in advance, wrapped them well and froze them.  Then I did the icing the day before the party and loosely wrapped the whole thing with waxed paper. Some of you are thinking, That sounds intense! So let me tell you I am not a cake decorator normally, but I found this to be a very forgiving style for a novice.  Seuss scraggly style of drawing means that your icing does not have to be perfectly smooth.  If you are adventurous enough to try this cake, you should put dowels in the bottom three layers and then place a cake circle on top of layer 3.  Layers 4 and 5 can be cut at an angle before you stack them on.  (I learned that part from my brother who is a professional baker.)     

Well of course you have to serve Green Eggs And Ham!   I have a dish that is a green chilies and egg bake that is delicious, and isn't yucky if it gets a little cold on the buffet table the way a lot of eggs would be. I thought I would add some chopped up ham and green food coloring to it, but at the last minute we decided to just make the food marker (a shrunken photo copy of the book cover on a skewer) say Green Eggs and Ham with the word chilies inserted between Green and Eggs like a proof writer would do and to leave out the food coloring.  We had a sushi platter that we labeled with One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (again a shrunken photo copy of the book cover on a skewer).  For all the other food, we placed markers (in the shape of the Cat in the Hat's hands) on skewers.

Then everything was given a Seuss-like name.  Some examples: Crummies in Tummies (crackers) Seussitos (taquitos), Truffula Fruit (olives).  On the table amongst the rest of the food I put an unopened can of corn in which I had peeled the label and created my own on the computer.  My label said the last can of Who-Hash (from How the Grinch Stole Christmas).  I made it using Power Point and Google.  On Google I clicked first on Images, and then typed in the different things I needed for a label.  I was able to find a picture of corned beef hash, a UPC code, and a nutritional information label.   I used the original corn label as my model while I created to see where to type, place pictures, add different fonts and sizes, lines and shading.  For Ingredients I wrote Roast Beast, water, salt.  The final product looked great- and it was way easier than I imagined it would be. Give it a try!  I also put out individual servings of pudding labeled Who-pudding and an empty plate labeled, a crumb that was even too small for a mouse. (Both also from the Grinch.) 

Games:  We had four games.  The first three were for adults or parents partnered with their children.  The last one was for children only.  (Most of our guests were adults or only one year old, and too small for games.) Games 1, 2, and 4 all had prizes of gift cards from Barnes and Noble that had the Cat in the Hat on them.  Whether a child or an adult won, who wouldn't like money as their prize? 

Game 1:  TRIVIA about the guest of honor and Dr. Seuss:  Examples: What was Baby's first word? What was Dr. Seuss first published book? What is baby's middle name?  What was Dr. Seuss real name?  (I checked out a book called Your Favorite Seuss: A Baker's Dozen by the One and Only Dr. Seuss by Dr. Seuss and Molly Leach, which helped me get some ideas and information for this.) 

Game 2: MULTI-WRAPPED GIFT: Play this game like Hot Potato- when the music stops whoever is holding it gets to unwrap one layer.  The person who unwraps the last layer gets to keep the prize. Ours was a pack of Seuss note cards.   

Game 3:  MEMORY TRAY:  An old stand-by.  Place about 20 or so themed items (in our case it was a rubber duck, a Seuss board book, a pacifier, etc.) on a tray.  Keep it covered and out of site until it is time to play.  Uncover the tray and let the guests see what is there for about 30 seconds to a minute.  Cover it up again and everyone tries to write as many items as they can remember. The winner is the one with the most correct answers. 

Game 4:  PIN THE WOCKET ON BABY'S POCKET    Played exactly like Pin the Tail on the Donkey.  What I did was blow up a photo of Baby to poster size (only about $2-3  at Kinkos if you ask for black and white, but color was a lot more expensive) and glue it to a sheet of yellow poster board.   In the same style of lettering that is on the cover of There's a Wocket in My Pocket, I wrote in Pin the Wocket on Baby's Pocket! I also copied Wockets and cut them out around the shape of the creature.   The children or their parents wrote their names on the Wockets before we started.  I thought this game was so old fashioned, but the kids just loved it!  This was by far the best-received game of the party! 

Invitations:   We were having a lot of guests; to save some money we used Evite (www.evite.com) instead of sending invitations through the mail.  I scanned the cover of Dr. Seuss's book titled Happy Birthday to You! And used a bit of his verse in the same book as the message part of the invitation. 

Other:   At the door on a small table, I put out a photo album of Baby's First Year.  Then we gave guests small slips of paper for them to fill out, saying, Would you fill this out? It is for Baby's scrapbook.  There were three things for guest to fill in:  1. favorite Dr. Seuss book 2. a special wish for Baby 3. Sign their name We collected the slips in a basket that was on the small table with her photo album.  I found a few printable coloring sheets and Seuss crossword puzzles that I gave just to the few children that came. 

Party Favors:   All scrapbooking items: A full sheet of Dr. Seuss themed (Green Eggs and Ham) acid- free paper and a pack of Dr. Seuss stickers (One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish) rolled together and tied with a ribbon.  Also tied into the ribbon was a small clear bag (got these at a cake decorating store), which held photo corners in primary colors.  These bags were sealed with a sticker personalized for each child:  One of the sets of Seuss stickers I found was the entire alphabet in Seuss font/handwriting.  So John got a bag with a Seuss J on it and Mary's had an M.   We had lots of fun and so did our guests.  I hope you will too!