The day has come and gone, and I think that Curious Ethan's 2nd birthday party was a success! Ethan's 1st birthday party with it's over 120 guests was a little chaotic and so I vowed -- mostly for my husband's sanity -- to do things a little smaller scale this year. The truth is, I absolutely love throwing these parties and all of the planning, crafting, chaos that goes into it. It's fun for me. I think somewhere the memo started being shared that Pinterest exists out of parental obligation, or to make other people feel bad when they don't do crafty things for parties, and it makes me sad to keep reading things like this because, really, I love it. And I love doing it because it's fun. I'm not even good at it, but I love it, so I will forever continue staying up until the wee hours of the night working on craft project after project for Ethan's birthday parties and pining over all of the little details that no one will notice until I frankly don't enjoy it anymore. I have a few "details" posts coming up, but we opted to throw Ethan's 2nd birthday party at MyGym. Ethan has been attending MyGym classes since he was eight weeks old and his two teachers, Mr. Lee & Mrs. Karen, have become more like family at this point in Ethan's life. It was a complete no-brainer to have Ethan's party at MyGym and from there, all of the other details tied in perfectly. (I could use all the "go bananas" and "monkey around" puns I wanted, all in the comfort of MyGym's color scheme which matched beautifully to our Curious George theme! Fate? Yes, I think so. Ten points for MyGym Coconut Creek!) The party was at 10:00 a.m., so we served plain bagels cut into quarters with butter or cream cheese, hummus cups with yellow pepper slices, applesauce, banana pudding, veggie straws and fruit. My friend had the fabulous suggestion of tying one balloon to each goodie bag, thus solving the inevitable "balloon waste" problem. This way, the balloons were displayed beautifully and each kid got to bring one home! The few extra balloons we had were tied onto rings (thanks to Miss Karen's brilliant idea!) and placed on the countertops as centerpieces. My friend did the amazing cake and cake pops -- the cake pops were colored to match the balloons! Set up began at 8:45 a.m. for our 10:00 a.m. party and was finished with the help of my amazing, awesome, fabulous friends! Instead of party hats, I made Curious George masks for all of the kids, thanks to the awesome printable on PBS online! Also, my Birthday Party Must is to put someone other than myself in charge of photographs! This year, the photographs were made possible by my teenage sister's good friend, Riya, who served as the Curiously Good Photographer of the day! During circle time, Miss Karen announced a special guest who had just arrived... "CAAAAAAAAAAAKE!" It was an awesome day! Ethan had a blast celebrating his second birthday with all of our wonderful friends and family -- and his favorite monkey, too! Ethan's Curious George birthday tee - Magical Memories Party location - My Gym Coconut Creek - 6504 North State Road 7, Coconut Creek, FL Monkey character - Character Adventures Food display stands - I made them! (Tutorial to come!) George Masks - PBS Balloons - Bulk Balloons Cake and pops - Courtesy of my BFF! South and Central Floridians, if you need a cake or some pops, I'd love to give you her contact information! Bagels - Bagels And A Whole Lot More, 10281 West Sample Road, Coral Springs, FL