Annie’s birthday party was this past Saturday and I went all-out. I did something totally out of character and planned everything I wanted way in advance, and then I did a little bit of prep every night in the weeks leading up to the party. I am a lazy procrastinator when it comes to a lot of things, but when it comes to parties, mama don’t mess. The Yo Gabba Gabba theme was pretty fun and versatile; I took a lot of inspiration from songs from the show and used lyrics all over the place. Annie didn’t mind listening to the songs on repeat so I could get ideas.

I hope you are ready for a mega-post. My awesome cousin Leah and her boyfriend Ted took turns with my camera, and they took five hundred photos. Literally. Thanks, you two!

Guests were greeted with this wreath on the door (I found the instructions here, and I added the paper characters for personalization):

YGG Balloon Wreath

When guests walked in, they were prompted to take a hat and/or a pair of glasses. I bought the DJ Lance glasses from a party store, and I made the hats myself. Well, I bought the hats already made, but I pasted on the faces from a template I bought from an awesome website, ThePartyProject. I printed out her template onto large label paper, and then cut each face out by hand.

hats and party favors

The balloon wall was Annie’s favorite thing. I recruited my parents and Mike to blow up all these balloons (100 total) and then my dad and I tied them together into long strands. Mike hung them up on the wall while I put together the cardboard Plex and Foofa characters. When Annie walked out the morning of her party, she squealed with delight.

photo op

I put together photobooth props (also from a template from ThePartyProject) so the guests could take pictures in front of the balloon wall. I set up my printer so anyone who took a picture with their camera phone could email it directly to the printer. Lots of people went home with pictures from the party!

(Edit: This is a picture-heavy post and it was taking forever for the blog to load, so I’m putting in a jump to speed up loading times!)

photobooth

Smile For The Camera

I put faces on the balloons, too. Of course I did.

balloons, balloons, balloons make me happy

I printed off tons of stuff from the Nick Jr website to decorate the house, plus some of the other templates The Party Project sent me. I cut out so many things. My hands don’t want to use scissors for a while.

Happy Birthday Annie

I also did this to a bunch of my framed photos:

the hallway photos, gabba-fied

You probably want to see the birthday girl. Annie Foofa!

The birthday girl

And of course, Brobee Heather and DJ Mike Rock in the house tonight!

Brobee and DJ Lance Rock

All the food had a YGG tie-in, and my mom made the awesome cucumber-Brobee (click the image to enlarge):

Party Food

I went to the Nick Jr. website and printed up a bunch of YGG coloring sheets. I set up Annie’s table in the corner of her playroom and hung some ribbon on the wall with clothes pins so the kids could hang up their art. There was always at least two or three kids (big and small) coloring.

We're all going to the art show

We hired a balloon twister. This turned out to be a GREAT thing because it rained so the kids couldn’t run around outside. He made whatever the kids wanted – animals, hearts, flowers, and swords. Lots of swords.

Balloon Arts and Crafts

After an hour of ballon-twisting fun, it was time to sing happy birthday. Guess who didn’t cry?

happy, happy birthday

You can’t tell, but the 18 little kids behind me all helped Annie blow out her candles.

There is nothing like the silence of a gaggle of children eating cake.

let them eat cake

Annie is still talking about the party. Yeah, I know it was only a few days ago, but it makes me happy to know that the hours of cutting and stringing and taping and pasting made an impact on her.

After the party she said to me, “Mama! Gabba birthday SO FUN. Again?” Luckily for her, I am back to my lazy procrastinating ways, and the decorations are still on the walls. It’s Gabba birthday every day around here. Maybe that’s why she’s still talking about it?