A Mickey Mouse Themed Party for Our Big 2-Year-Old Boy

I'll go ahead and put it out there. I committed a terrible mommy crime and forgot to take pics at my son's second birthday party. I spent hours pinning ideas, planning the menu and games and looking for and buying the perfect pieces and then FORGOT to take pictures of the thing!!!! AAAGGHHHHH!!! I could kick myself. My camera was sitting on the kitchen table the entire time!!! But in the moment, it just never occurred to me. I was too busy HAVING FUN!!!! Oh well. :) I did take a few pics of the food tables before the party and asked family to share any pics they had, so blurry phone pics are all I have to work with.

My little man is REALLY into three characters right now: Caillou, Elmo and Mickey Mouse. He has a cousin who was having an Elmo party the week after his party, so I nixed an Elmo theme. Caillou is his very favorite book/tv character right now, so I wanted to do a Caillou party and started a pin board of Caillou Birthday Party Ideas, but once I started looking at Mickey Mouse ideas, I found so many cute ideas I just couldn't resist.

Here's what we did.

The Menu: 

• Hot Diggity Dogs: hot dogs (his birthday is in December so we couldn't cook these outside on the grill, so I did them in the crockpot following these Crock Pot Hot Dog instructions and they turned out great).

• Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Sandwiches: We pre-sliced everything and just set it out for people to make their own sandwiches the way that they wanted. I bought a Mickey Mouse sandwich cutter off ebay for $5.99 and it was PERFECT. My mom and I set up an assembly line the night before his party and cut ham, turkey and bologna (we bought lunchmeat that was not too thick and not too thin); cheddar and colby jack cheese slices (the real stuff) and white and wheat bread in no time! It was really fast.  Just a warning if you do this - you will be left with about half of your bread, lunchmeat and cheese as scraps, which are perfectly fine for making sandwiches and omelets (and for feeding the birds) later.....just be ready for all the leftovers. We also had lettuce, tomato slices and sandwich pickles as well as mustard and mayo for folks to fix their sandwiches with. 
• Nacho Cheese Doritos and Crunchy Cheetos: what's a party without chips????

• Store-bought Mickey Mouse marble cake with buttercream icing: I would've made his cake if we were having his party at home; but his party was three days before Christmas and at his grandmother's house (8 hours away from home, and we had gotten into town just before his party....his birthday is ten days before Christmas and while it's nice to be able to do a party for him a few days before Christmas (with much of his family there), making and decorating a cake after driving 8 hours with a toddler, going grocery shopping (I did get as much as I could in advance), prepping all the other food, etc., it was too much work to make and decorate a cake myself. So the bottom line is I decided to just go with a store-bought cake this year ...... I did make his cake for his first birthday party and it took four or five hours and added a whole 'nother layer of stress that I decided to just cut out this year. And who are we kidding, store bought cakes are GOOD and look better than any cake I would've spent half a day on.
• Icecream: We did a quart of both Birthday Cake and Oreo Cookies & Cream  :)
• Drinks: Soda for the adults and Juicy Juice juice boxes for the kiddos.

The Games: Since his birthday is in December, we had to do inside activities. Here is what we did:

• Cookie decorating: I wish I had pics of this! I used the sandwich cutter and baked a batch of Mickey-shaped sugar cookies the night before his party. I bought several pouches of squeezy cookie icing and a variety of sprinkles and let the kids just do their thing!
• Dum-Dum topiary game: I made the Mickey Mouse Dum-Dum topiary the night before the party following these Minnie Mouse Centerpiece Instructions. A week before his party, I had painted the pot white and glued a red-and-white polka dot ribbon around the top. I used two 4-inch and one 8-inch styrofoam balls because I couldn't find the larger size, but the topiary was plenty big for a cool centerpiece and game piece. The night I made the topiary, I used a bag of 300 Dum-Dum pops and it wasn't enough. I was not able to completely cover the back with lollipops, but it was about 10 p.m. the night before his party and I wasn't about to leave the house to try to find more. I had to put some in the back to even out the weight (it was front-heavy). We marked the sticks of 30 of the lollipops with a black sharpie and randomly stuck them in the topiary. For the game, we went in order of youngest to oldest; when someone's turn came up, he or she could pull as many lollipops out as they wanted, but once they pulled one with a black stick they had to stop and let the next person go. It's pretty simple but the kids really liked it! And of course, each kid got a ton of Dum-Dums to take home! At the start of this game, I gave each child a Mickey Mouse favor bag to keep their lollipops in. 
• Mickey and Friends Matching Game: I found a deck of flash cards at the Dollar Tree. The flash cards had one card with a number (the numeral, ex: 7) and a Mickey character (Daisy, Pluto, Minnie, etc.) and a corresponding card with the word of the number spelled out (ex: seven) and the same Mickey character. We taped cards with the words spelled out around the house before the party. At the start of this game, each child got three cards with the numeral and had to find the matching card as fast as they could. Adults helped the little ones. Everyone that found all three of their matches (which was everyone of course) got two of their choice of either travel sized Nutter Butters, Oreos or Chips Ahoy Chocolate Chip Cookies. I wrapped each of the packages with a curly ribbon just to make them a little extra special. 
• Goofy Dares: I came up with a list of kid-friendly dares. For every dare that a child successfully completed, he or she was able to choose one Dollar Tree prize (bubbles, silly putty, coloring book, etc.) from a bag of prizes.

  

  Silly Putty boogie....I guess? Not sure what was happening here. :)

  

  Feet Kissing.

• Make the funniest face you can. 
• Stick your tongue out while crossing your eyes. 
• Quack like Donald Duck. 
• Try and rub your tummy while patting your head. 
• Count to ten.
• Sing your ABCs. 
• Do your best Goofy laugh. 
• Do your silliest dance. 
• Stand on your head for ten seconds (get help if you need it). 
• Spin around in a circle 5 times. 
• Eat a spoonful of mustard. 
• Eat a spoonful of ketchup. 
• Try to lick your elbow.
• Make a monkey noise. 
• Kiss your feet.
• Sing “I’m a Little Teapot” and do all the motions.
• Act like a fish. 
• Pretend you’re a bug someone just stepped on. 
• Name the seven dwarfs.
• Do “this little piggy” on your own feet.  

 After we ate and played games, we opened presents.

Then, we sang Happy Birthday to the Birthday Boy.

And of course, ate lots and lots of cake and ice cream!

Lastly, for the party favors, I bought plastic Mickey Mouse cups and filled each with: the contents of one bag of Mickey Mouse party favors, a Fruity Pebbles cereal bar, a bag of Elf graham crackers, a glow bracelet and a bag of Mickey Mouse Jelly Belly jellybeans. There's a pic of those above (by the drinks).

I also bought a soundtrack of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse songs but forgot to play the dern thing during the party. Oh well. I get to listen to it every day in the car now at the insistence of my 37.5-inch tall back-seat driver. :/

I am upset about not having taken more and better pictures but am thankful for the pictures that I do have and even more thankful for all of the wonderful memories I have of my sweet, big boy having fun and much of his family being there to help celebrate him turning one year older! He really loved his party this year (he was pretty miserable at his first birthday party) and I will treasure the memories of his little Mickey Mouse party forever! :)