Avery has always, and still does, love animals. From real life to plush to hard plastic, she can’t get enough. So, it was fitting that her second birthday had a jungle animal theme.

Colors
Dark and light green

Decor/supplies
Jungle pals invites and thank yous from the party store
Zoo Pals plates and plasticware
Generic animal paper cups from Woodmans
Light green table covers and dark green napkins
Light and dark green balloons with alternating curly ribbon
I also placed hard plastic animal toys around the edge of the deck and scattered among the food.

Food
Lemonade mixed with generic Sprite
Teddy grahams
Goldfish crackers
Party peanuts (I think I was thinking “elephant food”)
Jungle animal fruit snacks (Sam’s Club brand)
Veggie tray (for the moms)

Cake
I had fun this year making animal cupcakes. I made white cupcakes and decorated them with frosting and candies. The monkey is two shades of chocolate frosting swirled with a knife, with junior mint ears, half mini-marshmallows for eyes and details done with a black gel writer. The bear is white frosting with brown sugar dusted on it, with a half-marshmallow nose, jelly belly eyes and I can’t remember the kind of candy I used for ears but it’s brown with white centers, I cut them in half. The pig is white frosting with pink jello (any flavor will do), half marshmallow nose (don’t forget the black nostrils with the gel writer) and raisin eyes. I think I used pink jelly beans for ears but something else might work better.

Activities
I turned a paper box into a monkey toss game by cutting out a monkey-shaped face from scrapbook paper and drawing the details on, with the mouth being the opening. I used some green scrap fabric and rice to make bean bags. We didn’t have an official game but the kids had fun tossing the bags at the box.

Also, my neighbor friend generously served as our face painter, providing whiskers and black noses to the girls who were brave enough to try it (not the birthday girl)!

Goody bags
I bought green goody bags at the party store, and filled them with a sheet of animal stickers, plastic rings with animals, jungle pals pencils, bubbles and random candy.

We put our cat down yesterday. No matter how you feel about animals, it’s always hard to see them go. Friday was an “interesting” cat. I’ll never forget the day I brought her home about 8 years ago (I adopted her through someone I worked with at the time). I pulled her out of the box in a slow, dramatic fashion in order to present her to my husband. The process accentuated her long, skinny body, so we had a good laugh. But what usually got the attention of first-time guests to our house was her six-toed front paws. Both these things made her odd, but she was a good kitty (already 8 years old so she mostly just liked to cuddle) and we enjoyed having her. For the most part, she stayed far away from anybody but me and Matt (she loved to sit in his lap while we watched tv). The past year or so, she was much less likely to hide though. After 15 years of being freaked, I think she just got to the point of not caring anymore. Avery especially bonded with her the past couple months. Friday would sleep with her during naps and go to bed with her at night (although she wouldn’t stay very long), and the kids enjoyed petting and playing with her. We knew she wasn’t diong well (we found out in September that she had a thyroid condition). By the time I finally got the guts to take her to the vet, she was all skin and bones. To top it off, she was having accidents on a daily basis, so we knew it was time for her to go. Avery wants to add: “I love my kitty.”

Goodbye, kitty.