Makena's Sesame Street Themed 1st Birthday Party!

My mom bought this outfit, and while it's cute, we had already bought a perfect Sesame Street shirt for Makena to wear to her party. Also, we wanted to focus on the whole Sesame Street group, and not just Elmo. Makena loves this though, and she always wants to hold her Elmo doll when she wears it! lol. But in this photo she's happy with her new straw cup.


On Sunday January 23rd we had Makena's birthday party. We used a rented clubhouse that cost $100 which is fully refundable. Perfect! We needed to find somewhere indoors, because last year it was cold and rainy when Makena was born. But, of course it just happened to be warm and sunny that day!

Here were the invitations, each one was personalized with the name of the guest in the sign-

And this is what the party room looked like after a few hours of decorating and help from my mom and Kansas' moms (who were visiting from Fresno)!

The street signs are my favorite part, I'm sad I didn't take any photos of the ones outside that were strategically taped to lamp posts to lead guests to the party location!

There were Sesame Street books, Sesame Street stuffed animals, even Sesame Street cars for the kids to play with! At the last minute Pam bought a goldfish and appropriately named her Dorothy, just like Elmo's fish!


There was a CD of Sesame Street music playing the whole time, and we even had songs that were personalized and had Elmo singing Makena's name during them!

A close up of the cake I made:

And the cupcakes that Pam made!!

Amazing, huh?!

We also had this awesome Sesame Street ball pit, and it was a huge hit with the kids!

A colorful parachute added another level of fun to the party!

We even played Pin the Nose on Elmo! I wasn't sure if this would work for a group of 6, 11, 12, and 14 month olds... but it did!! The tried to pull it off the wall a few times, but Makena totally stuck the orange oval right onto Elmo's arm! (Her thumb is pushing the sticker down in this photo.)
We also had games for the bigger kids (Makena's cousins)/adults. Some trivia questions about Makena, and everyone got 4 right except for my mom who won with 5 correct.
And a cookie guessing game:


There were 162 cookies in that jar, and Nickel got to take them all home! I asked every guest to sign a page that will some day be in a scrapbook of Makena's birthday parties. :)
Then we had cake:

Makena wasn't too interested in the cake, but she loves the figurines on top! And, as an unexpected bonus, they tasted pretty good too!
She picked the cookie out of his mouth, took a bite, then tried to feed it to Cookie Monster again. lol!
Time to open presents!

The goody bags that we handed out as everyone left. They had a package of Goldfish crackers, a rubber duckie, bubbles, and a crayon-

And before each guest walked out the door we had them take a polaroid photo with the birthday girl!
After everyone left, Makena took a long nap in the car as Pam drove around. I started the clean up and then when she woke up she got to play with the balloons and run around and play with her new Elmo's World pop up play tent!

Later after she was in bed at home, I tooka photo of all the gifts she got. My mom took a photo of my gifts from my 1st birthday. And here, for a comparison:

My gifts, in August of 1983-


And Makena's first birthday gifts. Amazing what a difference 28 years makes!

The party was a huge success. :) It was relaxed yet fun, and Makena had a great time which made all the stress of planning it totally worth it! I'm so excited about all the fun parties I get to plan for her! Can't wait to see what next year brings!