Nursery Rhyme Party -3yr- Meringue Sheep

For my daughter's 3rd birthday, I had a Nursery Rhyme party. 

For the invitation, I downloaded a beautiful graphic of a cat & fiddle, cow/moon & dish spoon (from this site: http://www.thevirtualvine.com/nurseryrhymes.html) and then I printed out a rhyme with the specifics of the party :    Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, Baker’s man, Hurry to our house as fast you can. Little Miss Mollie’s having a birthday; We’ll have food & cake, Maybe curds & whey. 

On the first of June,  At half past noon, Will the dish run away with the spoon?  Three blind mice,  see how they run, Please call & tell me you'll join the fun!  Little boy blue hopes to see you; The party shall last until 2. I put our address & phone number at the bottom of the invite. 

For a Little Bo Peep cake, I made a 9x13 chocolate cake, frosted w/green tinted icing & then used the Wilton doll/cake mold for a yellow cake & frosted the dress w/white icing & pink ribbons.  I put a straw hat on the doll's head, did a ribbon of icing around it & made little flowers by cutting mini colored marshmellows into thirds & placing these "petals" around a small round candy. 

I made sheep by piping meringue onto a baking sheet, adding pretzel stick legs, mini chocolate chip eyes & pieces of Andy's chocolate mints for the ears.  I set these on the cake base & made a staff for Bo Peep out of cookie dough (I wanted to use a cnady cane, but it's June & I couldn't find one anywhere!). 

For lunch we had pb & j for the kids, cut out into moons & cows, sheep & bells (as in silver bells & cockle shells).  The grown ups had row row row your (tuna) boats- done in hot dog buns w/a  pretzel stick holding a cheese triangle sail, plus I filled grape tomatoes w/tuna for buoys.  

For games, we played London Bridges, Ring around the Rosy, and had egg & spoon races (hard boiled); that's all we had time for, but I had planned additional game as well: freeze dancing w/nursery rhyme songs, jack be nimble jumping contests (or obstacle course), jack & jill water pail relay races (if its hot & outside), and knock Humpty Dumpty off the wall (like a bean bag toss).

For party favors, I found some really cute little Nursery Ryhme themed books on sale at Barnes & Noble that I wrapped in tissue paper & tied with ribbon.  I like to give these to the kids while my kids are opening presents so that the kids have something to do besides just watch the birthday child open his or hers.

I prefer to give the guests some kind of book rather than a bag full of candy- I seem to spend just as much buying trinkets & candy as I do if I just go ahead & get them each something they can really keep. This was a lot of fun & I think it would also be great for a 2 year old.