Nine Months: Royce is TWO-dles!!

For those of you that do not have young kids or kids at all...
My title references the ever fabulous, classic and timeless Mickey Mouse.

Yes, folks, this post will be completely craft-mom-blog!
No running, no weighing in...
Full on Pinterest worthy material right here!!

My baby boy turned 2 on September 22nd. ~~and it took me this long to write up a post about all the details~~

The child is 100% totally obsessed and cray-cray for Mickey Mouse.
So a Mickey birthday party was obviously a no-brainer!

(On a total serious note though...any moms out there agree with me that Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is somehow laced with cocaine?!? I mean kids are captivated and obsessed!)

We actually went to see Disney on Ice on Royce's birthday eve (Saturday, September 21).

Royce was free since he sat on our laps and didn't require a seat!

Score!

And let me tell you....that kid was captivated.

He just watched them so intently, sat (basically) perfectly still, and squealed with delight!

It was so heart warming to watch how much he enjoyed it.

We're seriously considering going when their in PA in October and NC in December!

Yes, perhaps crazy...but it's that good!!

I mean, Mickey and Gang and the princesses are my childhood memories too...

So needless to say, homegirl was singing and dancing a long.

SO.

MUCH.

FUN.

Ok, so let's talk party, shall we?!?!

My husband is pretty handy with Microsoft Publisher and I had a few ideas in my head of what I wanted the invitation to look like!
After downloading the "Mickey" "Minnie" and "Walter" free Disney fonts, a few nagging details from yours truly, he cranked out our little man's invitation.

And I loved them!!

Birthday party day, I was up bright and early to get started on making the birthday cake.

I had seen an idea of what I wanted to do where there were six round cakes with a Mickey body part on each cake: the head, his shorts, 2 hands and 2 feet.

I had three different cake mixes: chocolate, funfetti and spice cake (used to make Pumpkin cake...Sunday, Sept 22nd was also the first day of fall!!)

I baked two round cakes per each mix, and had enough of the pumpkin mix to make 2 cupcakes...

And voila:

It's a bit abstract, but I was pretty pleased.

If I had to do it all over again, I would probably use smaller, 6 in round cake pans for the hands and feet cakes.

For the centerpieces, I saw Mickey heads made out of styrofoam balls somewhere along my Pinteresting career.

But I decided to put my own take on it!

I bought a pack of 3 inch dial rods from Michael's,

a pack of 6 styrofoam balls from Michael's,

3 bags of mixed sizes styrofoam balls from Dollar Tree,

and some black acrylic paint from Wal-mart.

And went to town painting.

(Just a word to the wise...cos I found out the hard way...spray paint will not work on the styrofoam balls. it will make them disintegrate! You're welcome!)

no bueno!

I also got a pack of 4 yellow rectangular buckets and 2 bags of red crinkle paper grass from the Dollar Tree and came up with this masterpiece that I was quite pleased with!

I bought 3 of each: yellow, red, and black tablecloths from the Dollar Tree as those were my color scheme.

I found some red with white polka dot fabric and yellow fabric in the scrap bins at Michael's that I knew I wanted to create a flag banner out of.

I cut triangle flags out of the fabric.

Next, I wrote "ROYCE IS TWO-DLES" on black construction paper, cut the letters out and hot glued one letter per flag, alternating the red and yellow fabrics.

I bought a total of four 12x12 pieces of scrapbook paper.

2 in red and white polka dot, and 2 of a yellow and white stripe.
I used the yellow and white striped paper as a matte of sorts for this sign for the hot dog bar:

(the iconic Hot Dog Dance song)
Yep, we had a hot dog bar...I mean it only made sense!!
Our options were ketchup, mustard, relish, onion, pickles, banana peppers, chili, and cheese sauce.
In black salsa bowls I got at the Dollar Tree and added on black construction paper ears.

Out of the red and white polka dot paper, I made the "Thank You" signs to go on the goody bags.

I got 2 of the XXL large bags of M&Ms and sorted through to pick out the red, yellow, and brown ones.
There are no candy stores anywhere near us...ideally, that would be the best idea...to buys bags of the desired colors.
I placed the M&Ms in a small ziplock bag and stapled on the construction paper Mickey ears and glued on the "Thank You" sticker.

I had the idea to have all of Royce's little friends and cousins to color or draw their own version of Mickey so I could hang them in his room.
My husband printed out different Mickey coloring pages on cardstock and we had blank pieces of carstock for the older kids to draw their own Mickey.
I got a couple packs of Mickey Mouse crayons from the Dollar Tree and only let them use the red, black, and yellow crayons from the pack!

I love how it showcased everyone's artistic abilities and Royce just points at the Mickey drawings in his room every time we go in there... "MICKEY!!! MICKEY!!! MICKEY!!"

My mother-in-law bought some packs of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse balloons on Amazon and bought a helium tank so we blew the balloons up ourselves for added decorations.

If you know me, I'm a sucker for a theme, so I painted my nails appropriately!!

I told my husband that I wanted him to create a "Clubhouse" sign to point to our backyard where the party would be held.
I didn't care how he did it...just one stipulation...the "O" in clubhouse had to be Mickey's head!

I think he did pretty well!

My sister ordered some Mickey letters off of Etsy to spell out Royce's name using the chracaters.

These were part gift/part decoration!
They are now showcased on the shelf in his room and he calls out each of the characters every time we walk into the room!

And the highlight...well kind of...was the Mickey character we hired to come to the party.

Royce LOVES Mickey, but he does not love a giant, moving Mickey!!
He was pretty scared of him!

He'd chase after him and dance from afar with Mickey, but the second Mickey came near him, Royce was running in the other direction!
But at least he was a hit with the other kids!!