A Slice of the Pi Life: A Dog Party!

Jeremiah loves dogs. And the Pi family loves Seuss. So when it came time to pick a theme for his second birthday, "Go, Dog. Go!" was perfect! (Note: The book is actually written by P.D. Eastman, but is part of the "Dr. Seuss I Can Read" series.)

It all started with the invitation. (The actual invites included where, when, and my contact info to RSVP.) I made them in Microsoft Publisher, saved it as a 4x6 jpg, printed them as photos at Wal-Mart, then put address labels, return address labels, and a postcard stamp on the back. This is how I do our Christmas cards too. Works great!

When guests arrived at the party, they were greeted by these two dogs from the book. We had the dogs printed on a large printer, and then Josh and I painted them with craft paint. (Images from here.)

I also made a cardboard box car to loosely mimic the car on the invitation. (Yellow car, big dog, orange hat, green scarf...close enough!) This was just inside the door as you came in.

We stuck with the orange, white, and green theme throughout the party. Decorations included streamers, balloons, a birthday banner, color-coordinated table cloth, and buntings.

I cut the triangles for the buntings out of cardstock and hole punched the top two corners. Then I strung them on yarn. For the bunting on his high chair, I used my Cricut to cut out the letters T-W-O and glued them to the triangles.

I also painted Jeremiah's birthday shirt. I just used craft paint, so it will probably wash out. I wanted to use a shirt and paint I already had, so the dark brown dog is hard to see on the navy shirt. This was a labor of love, if you know what I mean.

My main thought in planning the party was, "What do two-year-olds DO at a party?" I wanted to have age-appropriate activities that were especially for them.

We started with coloring pages.

Then a game called, "Give the dog a bone." It was loosely Pinterest inspired. I covered a box with red wrapping paper, leaving the bottom of the box open. I glued a cardstock dog to the front and cut out the mouth. I cut out the dog bones from cardboard (the lids of paper boxes). I used packing tape to tape the box off the floor at two-year-old height, then just tossed the cardboard bones on the floor. The bottom of the box is open, so when you put the bones in the mouth, they just drop onto the floor.

This was a big hit with Jeremiah! He'd laugh when the bones dropped onto the floor.

We also had cardboard box race cars. I painted paper boxes with craft paint (the spray paint was in a mood). I printed headlights, grills, tail lights, license plates, and steering wheels and glued them onto the boxes. Can you spot the '65 Mustang and '69 Camaro? We even had a stop light that randomly switched between red and green to make the races more fun. (It's called a Yacker Tracker.)

Of course Jeremiah loved these, too.

The "work smarter, not harder" mantra in use.

I planned a scavenger hunt for the older kids. The "Go, Dog. Go!" image was printed on the opposite side of the clues. The final treasure was in the yellow cardboard car by the entry.

Jeremiah helped find the clues and put the puzzle together. Doesn't he look like he's trying to think where the treasure might be?

And of course there was cake! Another idea from Pinterest. This is straight from the dog party page in the book. For the cupcake toppers, I printed the image on cardstock, cut out the dogs, and taped them onto toothpicks.