Terrible Twos – A Monster Birthday Theme

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I can’t even believe it is already the end of October beginning of December! As soon as the first of September hits, our household spirals into a whirlwind! At least every 2 weeks there’s a birthday or holiday to plan for and celebrate. This goes on right through to the end of December! And I don’t even have school-aged children…oh boy. On top of all this, throw in being 7 months pregnant, feeling moody all the time, and chasing a 2-year old around who is CLEARLY chest deep into his terrible twos…it’s a recipe for death from exhaustion for sure!

Speaking of the terrible twos, our little Lincoln turned two at the beginning of October. I saw that he was developing “a mind of his own” around 18 months old, and therefore I felt that working a theme around monsters would be fun and fitting for this year! He also just really loves all things Halloween and pretends to be a monster all the time, so I felt that it was meant to be. Keep on reading for all the details!

Party Highlights:

• adorable hairy monster face cake
• monster googly eyes rice krispies treats
• make your own monster favour kits
• orange balloon garland

I don’t like to go crazy with colours for any event, kids’ parties included! Since Lincoln was 18 months old, I would ask him daily what his favourite colour was so I could feature ONLY this colour along with black, white and grey for his birthday party. For the first little while, he was gravitating toward purple. So all my plans involved purple icing, purple balloons, purple drinks.

Then, he really fell hard in love with orange as he got closer to two years old. And I mean, in LOVE with orange! Any program he’s watching, he will notably call out “ORANGE!” every time he sees the colour. He gravitates toward the orange shades in his crayons with squealing excitement! And out of the bag of Veggie Straws, he picks out and only eats the orange ones. The other day, he sorted all his orange shaded crayons together and proudly strutted over to us to show off his genius.

Just like for his first birthday, we kept our guestlist small again and it was just immediate family members. This time, it’s because we are in the middle of a pandemic and even though at the time of his birthday our area did not have any gathering restrictions, we really felt that it was the responsible thing to do. Wouldn’t you know it…a couple weeks after Lincoln’s birthday celebration, Covid-19 cases in our area surged like crazy! So I think we made the right call keeping this one small and intimate.

Orange Er’Thang – Decor for an intimate gathering

Just because we kept things small didn’t mean that we couldn’t add fun decor touches. I kept decor limited to just the dessert table display.

Confession time…I really dislike balloons. I’m actually quite afraid of them. I cringe at the idea they could pop in my face and make a loud noise! Whenever I set up events for clients in the past, I refused to do balloons just based on principle!

But, I am now a mom. And I have found out that kids really like balloons. So this 7-month pregnant momma blew up 72 latex balloons all by my lonesome and created a massive balloon garland using a balloon garland strip and glue dots! I hope Lincoln knows how much I love him, 😀

Luckily for me, not a single balloon popped in my face during the process. And even though Lincoln giddily played with the balloons all over the house, we were able to avoid any pops! Phew.

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Eats For a Covid World

Every event I’ve hosted this year has taken into careful consideration of public health recommendations. I needed to think of ways to serve food that would be as safe as possible to limit the spread of Covid. So we ordered individual pan pizzas from Pizza Hut as the main meal, and everything else was portioned out into individual servings.

Treats Fit For A Monster

I guess the only thing that was “communal” was the cake.

Oh the cake! I have to admit, I am SUPER proud of this one! I hate decorating cakes very much. The cakes I used to make for birthdays and other events were always overly extravagant – like, I’m talking ALWAYS multiple tiers with fondant and crusting buttercream. They were incredibly time-consuming to assemble. If you’ve been following along with me on the blog, you’ll see that I’ve simplified things. A. Lot. With the exception of this cake!

I did a Pinterest search of monster face cakes, and came across different versions of this one. It looks so elaborate but was so incredibly simple and quick to put together. I will forever look back on this cake fondly.

The hardest part in making this cake? Colouring the buttercream to the perfect orange hue! Holy crap I had to use a tonne of orange gel food colouring! Worth it.

The horns, eyeball, tooth and mouth are made from marshmallow fondant. Then I used a grass piping tip to pipe the orange buttercream “hair”.

Other desserts included simple Rice Krispies squares dipped in coloured candy melts and decorated with candy eyeballs, and simple cupcakes with vanilla buttercream. The monster cake toppers are actually a free font called “Happy Monsters“. So conveniently adorable!

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Gift Time!

After everyone had something to eat, we opened gifts. Lincoln got some pretty amazing things from his family!

But would you believe that his absolute favourite gift of all was the toy Dyson stick vacuum!? He always wants to push our Dyson stick vacuum when we’re cleaning. Now, he grabs his own little vacuum and follows us around the house. It’s too cute.

By the way, Lincoln’s adorable monster-themed outfits are from H&M. The grey and black monster pjs are sold out, but the black and orange jumpsuit is still available and currently on sale!

At the end of the party, everyone went home with a “Make Your Own Monster” favour kit. Just something simple put together from crafting items found at the Dollarstore! Hooray for another free font here on the label – “Germs“!

No surprise that I’ve already started thinking about what this guy’s third birthday theme will be! Hopefully by then, the world will be in a healthier place and we can invite some of Lincoln’s friends over to celebrate with him!