Noah's Ark Party -2yr- Find the Pairs

Noah's Ark Party for a two year old.  This party was for my son's second birthday. Since all the charaters that he liked were very commonly used birthday themes, like elmo, barney or pooh bear, I was thinking of something different. I was thinking of a theme that would go with his age and thats how I came up with the Noah's Ark theme.  

INVITATIONS :  Since all of our friends had email accounts, I sent them invitations through evite.com. I uploaded a Noah's Ark picture and below it the evite said," Join us for a Cruise on Noah's Ark. (.....kid's name.....)is turning two. This birthday is all about TWOs / PAIRs. Noah built a floating zoo with animals all times two. But this time the ark will have people. All couples come as matching pairs wearing the same colored tops and pants. All kids and singles wear something with an animal picture in it, if possible in pairs to go with the theme. the ark embarks at .....(the time and the place of the party). SEE YOU ON BOARD." You can be more creative and send out invitations by mail. Cut out a semicircle out of brown craft paper and invert it to look like a boat or an ark. Stick a picture of the birthday kid on one end of the ark and a picture of any animal pair (like a pair of lions or giraffes or anything your kid likes) on the other end of the ark. When opened, the invitation can read the same details as the above. 

FOOD: I made sure that the food should also be served in pairs to match the party theme. For the kids - I ordered TWO different kinds of pizza ,TWO kinds of munchkins (donuts), made TWO kinds of sandwiches and also had TWO kinds of icecream. For the adults - TWO kinds of puffs, TWO kinds of burgers, TWO types of soda, TWO kinds of chips with two kinds of dips and so on. Every food was serves in pairs to go with the theme. For the serving utensils, I bought the HEFTY ZOOPALS plates and bowls from SHOPRITE. For those who have not seen it, they are plates shaped in different animal faces. I also bought animal straw cups from the local dollar store. I ordered noah's ark napkins, tablecover, cups, the cake picks and centerpiece from partyworks.com. I took two aluminium trays and stapled them together in the sides. So they looked like two trays stuck to each other and I put the chicken burgers in one tray and hamburgers in the other tray. I did the same thing for all the other foods as well. People really appreciated my work and how appropriate it was to the theme. 

DECORATIONS: I did a lot of creative things for the decor. I made personal animal banners that read HAPPY BIRTHDAY .....(kid's name....). I cut out pairs of different animals from craft paper and stuck them together to form the happy birthday banners. I put them all around the house and the backyard. My kids have a huge inflatable jungle with animals. I inflated the jungle and the animals and put in the backyard for the kids to play with. I used the sidewalk chalk and drew pairs of animals on our entire driveway to show that they were entering the ark. I also placed cut out footprints of animals all around the house. I placed different stuffed animals around the house as well. I bought animal shaped mylar baloons and hung them all around the house and the yard.  

GOODIE BAGS: I bought plain colorful paper bags from a craft store. I also bought some glitter glue and foam animals. When the kids arrived I gave them each a bag and these foam animals and the glue. I made the kids stick the animals in pairs on their bags. This also kept them busy till all the guests arrived. I filled each of their goodie bag before they left with a noah's ark storybook, a pack of animal crackers, noah's ark stickers that I had bought from ebay, a music CD with different animal kid's songs and a candy bar with a personalized thankyou wrapper that I had made at home.  

GAMES: We had games for both the kids and the adults. I had made two ballot boxes. One was marked "MOST MATCHING COUPLE" and the other bax read "MOST THEME_APPROPRIATE CHILD". We made all the guests vote for the couple they think is the most matching pair and the kid that was most appropriately dressed to the theme. The ones with the highest votes won a prize.

For the kids - 1. the first game we had was Find the pairs. Each kid was given a bowl of animal crackers and was asked to take out pairs of animals. The kid that had the most number of pairs in one minute won a prize.

2. The second game was find your mate. I filled up an animal shaped sand box with sand and buried different plastic animals in the sand. Each kid was given an animal. They had to dig up and find their pair in the sandbox and bringthem to the finish line. the kid who came first won a prize.

3. the last game was the pinata. I bought an animal-shaped pinata and filled it up with goodies. For all the games, I gave all the kids some kind of prize sh that they were happy and the winner got a special prize. for the adults - We had a made for each other game for the adults and animal dumb charades. 

OTHER IDEAS: I had arranged for a professional face painter to come and paint the kid's faces. I made sure that she only painted animal faces, so that it matched the theme. At the end of the party, we made all the kids sit around the inflated jungle and the animals with their animal painted faces, holding a stuffed animal and took a nice memory picture. I sent out this picture with a thankyou note to everybody later and they all liked it alot. I also bought two to three disposable cameras and game them to different guests and asked them to take pictures as well. This gave us a lot of different pictures at different angles, which just one person could not have covered.  

CAKE: I had ordered a boat shaped cake from a local bakery. I bought animal cake picks from online and paired them up all around the cake. The candle was a lion holding the number two in its hand.   The party was a huge hit among all our friends and family. People were very impressed with the creative stuff that we had put up and they still talk about it. I hope I was able to give you some ideas for your party. Try this theme the next time for a second birthday party. You party will be no less than a HIT. Good luck and happy party ideas hunting.