Hello Kitty Party -2yr- Hello Kitty Dressup

I threw my younger daughter a Hello Kitty Party for her second birthday. 

INVITATION:  I always use a photo of my child for my kid's invitations.  I make 2 extra invitations (one for me and one for her) and save them in a special box to give to them when they are older- it's a nice way to see them grow through the yearly photo invite.  With that in mind I made Hello Kitty ears for my daughter to wear in the photo.  I made them out of an Easter bunny ears headband which I cut at the base, trimming them down and gluing them back shorter.  Then I added a sweet bow.  I dressed my daughter in a beautiful flower dress and had her holding her Hello Kitty face lunch box in a garden it was a very pretty photo.  I pasted the photo onto a plain white folded card invitation.  For the inside of the invitation I used clip art of Hello Kitty (the classic looking one with the red bow) and included all the Party info and to meow back a week before the party. 

DECORATIONS:  I hung Hello Kitty posters I found inside of H.K. coloring books.  I also found H.K. streamers, table cloths, plates, napkins, umbrella straws and personalized Mylar balloons at the party store. For the centerpieces I used H.K. purses that were weighed down and pouring out colorful tissue paper as my Mylar helium balloon weights. 

ACTIVITIES: *I threw the party on a Friday morning so that the older siblings of my daughter's friends would be in school and the party would be focused on the 2 year olds.  This was my time table: 9:15- Free Play- the party was in the backyard with a swing set, bounce house, tent, rented children's tables and chairs, two big boxes filled with Styrofoam packing peanuts that I decorated with Hello Kitty pictures that read: Kitty Litter.  As guests entered I greeted them with H.K. stamps for their hands and belly.   

9:45- I opened up a parachute and asked the guests to sit in a circle around it.  We went around in a circle and sang a Hello song which included singing hello to all the individual children with a H.K. puppet.  When the song was over I told the children (and Mommies) how much H.K. loves to say hello and that there were many ways to say Hello.  We all practiced the different ways; waving, shaking hands, hugging, kissing, talking on the toy phones and then I told them that there was another way to say hello and that was through letters in the mail.  I directed the children to the child sized tables that were waiting with crayons, hello Kitty stickers and Hello Kitty cut outs and tape.  I told them to take the paper and make there own H.K. hello-o-gram to whom ever they choose.  At the end I handed out envelopes with H.K. printed on them and the return address (top line reading Hello from Bailey Rose's Hello Kitty Party and wrote, To: ___ with enough lines to fill in the recipients name.  I collected the filled envelopes at the end of the activity and stamped and mailed them after the party.

COSTUMES: 10:00- Hello Kitty Dress Up; I found inexpensive headbands and cut ears from thick white paper. Each ear was cut out to fold over the head band and tape to itself in the middle with a loop of tape so the guests could take off the ears and save the headband after the party.  On the girl's head bands I attached red paper bows for the traditional H.K. look and I kept the ears plain for the boys.  I took black washable eye liner and drew whiskers on the children's faces and taped white string tails to the back of them.  Once the kids were all dressed up I told them to pretend like we are kitties and we all crawled around meowing and purring with our toddlers.   

PARTY SNACKS: 10:15- I asked the kids, What do Kittens Eat?  I told them that today they will be fishing for their snack.  In clear plastic cups, pre-filled with cream cheese, I put in a drop of blue food coloring which was the water.    The fishing poles were thick Pretzel sticks which they stirred the blue water with.  Then, they fished by touching the cream cheese covered tip of the Pretzel to goldfish crackers and ate them.  Note, warn parents not to let their child touch the food coloring directly and to help them mix it up with the pretzel if they are too young to do it themselves. I got this idea from a wonderful Mommy and Me class I took in the JCC in Miami, Dade. 

Also, throughout the party there was a buffet table with French toast casserole, Quiche, bagels and cream cheese, fruit salad, veggie platter and other organic children's snack foods in H.K. bowls. 

10:35-Free play 10:55- Bubbles- and I asked the kitties to pop the bubbles with their paws.

11:00- We played Hide and Seek with Hello Kitty stickers and fix my boo-boos with H.K. Band-Aids.  I adapted these games from the book I Love You Rituals written by Becky Bailey.  Basically, it is a way to bond/ connect with your child.  I gave the parents a sheet of H.K. stickers and told them to hide some and place some on more visible parts of their face, head, and ears and back of neck. Then, ask their child to find them.  There is no win or loose to this game, it is just about tracking what they do back to them like a camera with out good or bad and observing your child with love and feeling connected to them.  Also, the game could turn into any sort of play they children chose to do with the stickers. The next game was to ask your child to show you their boo-boos and cover them with H.K. Band-Aids. 

CAKE: 11:15- Birthday Song & Cupcakes.  I had the children sing the birthday song 2x; The first time like kitties meow, meow, meow, to the tune of happy birthday, then again the regular way.  I decided on cupcakes since the organic bakery was unable to make a H.K. cake.  I found the mini cupcakes and decorated them with sprinkles and H.K. toothpicks.  Actually, I made the tooth picks by taking the Tinkerbelle ones that are found at the party store and that are in the shape of a flower.  I covered the Tinkerbelle face with round stickers of H.K. that were exactly the same size and I used H.K. candles. 

FAVORS: 11:30- We ended by handing out Gift Bags.  I got lucky and found, at the $1 store in target a few months earlier, little H.K. dolls, pads of paper and plastic purses.  I filled these into paper purses.  For the boys I stuffed the H.K. paper purse goodie bags with Cars tattoos, Cars crayons and Cars wallets. 

For the Thank You notes I had already had very sweet face shots of my daughter in her H.K. ears from the invitation photo shoot and I attached them to plain white fold over cards.  At target I found a H.K. Scrap booking kit and now I am filling it with all the pictures from the party.