Oldest came into the world a TV lover.  I mean, I know all kids love TV- but really- by 6 months he would just lay there mesmerized by baby einstein for as long as I would let him.  I didn’t know this was out of the ordinary until I had more children.  The second wouldn’t sit for any length of period to watch TV until he was almost 2.  The third is 14 months and has very little interest so far.  In any case, by the time Cameron was 2 he had a well established Curious George addiction.  I have to admit, im pretty fond of the show myself- very clever writing.  Now he’s all grown up and into transformers and all that jazz, I miss those simple Curious George days…

For Cameron’s 2nd birthday party, and the first real birthday party I ever threw, we did it Curious George style.  It’s funny looking back at these pictures, I don’t think I even consulted the internet for anything.  Can you imagine? Back before pinterest… anyway, it was simple- but I think it was perfect.  We shared it with good friends and they had a good little 2-year-old time.

I knew I wanted a photo-op-carnival-style-stick-your-head-through-the-hole-thingy (that’s the official name of those things, you can fact check me if you want).  At first I was asking Sweet Hubby to procure me a piece of plywood and cut it to shape and I would paint it.  He looked at me with his big “you’re crazy” eyes and helped me scale down my idea to something less time intensive.  So we just got a big cardboard box, covered it with craft paper (very handy to have around when making party decorations by the way), painted the George, cut a hole for the head, and added some extra cardboard for the top of the hat to give it a more 3D feel.  Of course we changed it from Curious George to Curious Cameron to honor the birthday boy.

And since it was a Curious George party, clearly we had to get into some trouble.  George is frequently caught painting places he should not, so I thought it would be fun to do the same.  I taped up two long sheets of craft paper which I had traced some curious george characters on.  Told each of our little guests to come with a “smock” and armed them with washable paint and those big foam brushes (the 1 or 2 inch are best for little hands).  They had a ball.  This could obviously be easily adapted for a lot of different themed parties, just trace the appropriate images/characters and let the kids go to town.  Be sure you get the washable paint like this stuff!  And even so we hosed down what paint did get on our cinderblock wall right away to be sure.

 Of course they are all trying to paint the same character- spread out guys! plenty to go around 😉