Well, it happened, my daughter turned two last week. This weekend we celebrated with a small gathering of mostly family. We tried to keep it as small as possible, she was only turning two and although she is very friendly, large crowds tend to be a bit overwhelming to her. It was a bit busy at times, but nonetheless turned out to be a great day. I think my daughter enjoyed herself a little bit too.

I chose the Minnie theme because she LOVES "Mee-Mou" as she used to call her. Now her toddler talk has progressed to "Minnie." Plus there's something about pink with white polka dots that I love. I tried to keep it pretty simple this year. I think last year her first birthday was a little over the top. It took five adults a week worth of projects to prepare for and was over in the blink of an eye. This year was definitely scaled back and perhaps not as crazy cute, but still very theme oriented, straight down to the food labels.

The decorations were pretty basic. A pink with white polka dots table cloth, pink and white polka dot paper lanterns, pink and white streamers, a girly "Happy Birthday" banner and a Minnie Mouse balloon bouquet.

For a two year old you really don't need very many games or activities. I put out a couple of coloring pages that I got from buying a large Mickey coloring book from Michael's, but only a few pictures were colored.

We played pin-the-bow on Minnie with a giant Minnie shaped head that I cut out of black poster board and bows cut from girly colored tag board.

We also decorated cookies shaped like Minnie's head. All you need for this are Minnie shaped sugar cookies (mine were homemade from my great-grandmother's recipe), icing (homemade by a friend), and colored sprinkles.

And then there was the food. I tried to pick things that would lend themselves to easy eating and that would also fall into the theme. I made little labels for the food out of pink tag board and named them according to characters from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. We had...

And of course...

I really still can't believe she's two. Everyone says it goes by fast, so I guess I might as well enjoy the ride. I get a couple of months until my son turns 5 this summer. He's requesting a superhero party. My brain is already teaming with ideas. I better get started on this one early!