fiesta, fiesta! that means a party!

* title extracted from lyrics of the sesame street fiesta song ;)

our baby ilaika turned two on fifth march and we had a fiesta by our pool to celebrate.

i generally don't like character parties as they sometimes come across as too common & kiddie-ish for my liking...of course that is just my personal preference and alas, kiddie-ish themes are difficult to avoid for a 2-yr old's party!

so when ilaika chose elmo & cookie monster for her theme, i decided to base it on her favourite sesame street fiesta dvd. and to come to a compromise (for mummy!), the invites featured ilaika, elmo & cookie  monster but had patterns of colourful stripes as well as red polka dots and faded white flowers - with a scrapbooking feel.

- the front of the envelope -

- above: the back of the envelope -

- the inside of the invites, left: the front, right: the back -

the main colour theme was red for elmo (which i "kidnapped" ...ok i literally had to beg and borrow  this battered life size cut out from the party shop)...

but as it was a fiesta, we had lots of bright colours everywhere!

we decorated the tables with pom pom flowers and table stands with cards that had similar designs to the invites...

and each table had brightly coloured m&m's...

and in the last minute, i found some really cute vintage-looking wrapping paper with sesame street characters all over! so i used these for the streamers, tables and liners for the desserts as well as to wrap the presents for the games...

as i could not find the fiesta songs anywhere, zain ripped the songs straight from the dvd! i LOVE that the songs are enjoyable by both adult and kids alike. very lively and catchy tunes.

the party started at three pm so we served light finger foods and i might have gone a little overboard with the dessert spread...with homemade cupcakes, toppers and edible sheets with elmo & cookie monsters on them (exactly the same as the invites - but i removed ilaika's picture cos the thought of people eating her face was some what too "cannibalistic" for me)....

- sweet stuff biscuits -

- sweet stuff mini chocolate cupcakes with vanilla butter icing -

- sweet stuff carrot cupcakes with cream cheese icing -

- homemade flag toppers -

we invited mostly family (which is already a head count of close to thirty kids!), a few close friends and ilaika's classmates (which at this age, is only a headcount of only eight kids!). it was a challenge deciding on the activities to have as the kids were of various ages from zero to twelve. 

what we did was have a variety of things to keep them all occupied and entertained. we gave them plain white boxes to decorate into lovely keepsakes with stickers and markers; there was face painting which transformed some into pretty butterflies & spiderman (!), a treasure hunt, musical chairs & pin the nose on elmo (cos they don't seem to play these traditional games much nowadays!) and lots more fun and games. 

there was also a tug of war; boys vs girls and daddies vs. mummies. i think the girls won but the mummies sadly lost badly, with the daddies not even having to pull very much! of course, this all ended with the elmo pinata - the white boxes came in handy for this!

lastly, it was time for cake (put together by yours truly - believe me, it was an amazingly challenging feat trying to get the giant cookie to stay up at an angle!)...

- sweet stuff vanilla butter cake with oreos butter icing -

and then it was time to go home which only meant - time for party packs! there was an assortment of things customised to each child's age - elmo & cookie monster hand puppets, key chains, soft toys and purses, sesame street colouring books, customised colour pencils with their names on the boxes, notebooks customised with the theme's stripes, polka dots and flowers and colourful mechanical pencils too...

all in all, i hope everyone had a fun time...ilaika certainly did ;) 

this fiesta was a special gift from her mummy and daddy as well as her grandparents (my mum being the biggest contributor and cheerleader cum constant reminder of how little time i had left leading up to the fiesta!)...ilaika also got a present from us - a barbie tricycle...(cos we couldn't find an elmo one!)...

thanks to everyone for helping out, for coming and for the lovely lovely presents, which mummy-me has kept away so that ilaika doesn't get bored of them all at one go...she shall now have a present every weekend, much to her delight!

oh one last thing...check out this cute slideshow template on photobucket...how fitting for the fiesta pics!