Are you curious?

When trying to decide on a birthday party theme for Grace this year, I was really stumped. Not because I couldn't think of anything....but because I had so many different ideas. We tossed around the idea of an "almost" camping party in Kyle's backyard complete with tents, camp songs, and a glow-in-the-dark bug hunt; a pink girl pirate party since skulls and crossbones are so popular right now; a cupcake party; an "inflatable insanity" party at one of those places with the blow up slides and obstacle courses; and even a Spiderman party where the kids could try out a rock-climbing wall. (All good ideas that I might use in the future!) But, after a lot of deliberation and even some in-depth planning for some of those topics, I decided to use this book as the inspiration for Grace's 4th birthday celebration - a make your own pizza party!After considering a few different venues in our area including the possibility of using our house for the party, we decided to hold it at a local pizza place. Hey, I figured they were the experts at making and baking pizza AND they have big ovens so why try to do it all myself? I asked them for personal pizza boxes and used these as the invitations. Luckily, we were able to hand deliver them to many of our guests - just like a pizza delivery!The decorations were centered on the colors in the book - bright yellow, white, red, and blue - with balloon bouquets held in place with bunches of bananas, yellow table cloths, and some cute Curious George napkins. I even found edible monkeys online as the toppers for the cupcakes!As the kids arrived at the party they used crayons to decorate their own personal chef hats. I outlined their names a few days before the party so they would be able to find their seat at the table and add fun colors right away.I had hoped they would be able to roll their pizza dough but this pizza place didn't allow that. Instead they all got personal-size pizza circles which they covered in sauce, cheese, and the toppings of their choice. Most just wanted cheese while Dawson and Ryan asked for black olives and Grace wanted pepperoni. It was a treat to go into the kitchen and watch their pizzas going into the huge ovens!They also allowed the kids to go into the walk-in freezer and look at the assembly line where all the pizza toppings were stored. The personalized chef hats went home with each guest as party favors along with a Curious George book, stickers, and some Curious George fruit candies. All the party favors we put into small red, yellow, or blue shopping bags.While the pizza cooked we read Curious George and the Pizza Party and then a balloon entertainer join the party. He made every child his or her own animal in whatever colors they wanted. We had a monkey, two dragons, a ladybug, a bear, and a dog. The kids liked looking at the hundreds of balloons stored in his bag. It was a tightly-packed rainbow of color!After that we sang "Happy Birthday", Grace blew out her "4" candle, and everyone ate the cupcakes. Grace wore a really pretty yellow dress from Aunt Suze to go along with the color theme. She looked girly and festive. And, whenI found this adorable bow on Etsy....you know I couldn't pass it up!