Mother Goose 1st birthday party

I have boy/girl twins, which makes throwing a gender-neutral party a must.  I decided on a Mother Goose theme for their first birthday.  Turns out there are not a lot of birthday party ideas for Mother Goose on the web.  Some of these ideas below I adapted from other sites, and a lot I came up with on my own.

Decorations:

Birthday banner--this was my first attempt at one and it almost got forgotten!  My hanging pom poms were more like flattened flowers. 

My goal is always to try to do everything on the cheap.  I bought this birthday table topper at Dollar Tree, and just recovered it with some scrapbook paper, a copied Mother Goose picture, and stick-on lettering.

Silver bells and cockle shells...I bought these wedding bells on clearance at a craft outlet for .75.  The shells I had on hand.

Ring around the roses 

and Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater

Food: 

I assigned everyone a food item to bring, and gave everything a name.  We had Row row row your chicken boat sandwiches, Little Miss Muffet's Revenge (grilled spidered hotdogs),

Mary had a little jam sandwiches, cut into shapes; Georgie Porgie fruit salads;

Mary Mary's Garden Produce, Yankee Doodle Macaroni salad,

Humpty Dumpty deviled eggs

Pat-a-cake pops,

Queen of Heart Tarts, 

and Little Boy Blue horns.

Of course I made everyone come in costume!  These are some of my favorites:  my daughter as the Little Girl with a Curl, my nephew as Wee Willie Winkie,

My brother-in-law as the Muffin Man (complete with real muffins in his basket), and our costume contest winners, The Three Blind Mice.

This is me and my husband as Mother Goose, (of course!) and Old King Cole.

My twins were hard to decide on costumes for, but ultimately, I made them Sugar and Spice, and Snips and Snails.  I attempted to applique their shirts, but it wasn't pretty.  I didn't get great pictures of any of the party; I've since learned better, so you can only somewhat get the whole picture of their cute outfits.  My daughter's has a cupcake and my son's has a snail.  My talented mother-in-law made my daughter the adorable skirt for the occasion.

Games:

We invited both sides of our families, plus our good friends, which amounted to a lot of kids to entertain!  I adapted some traditional games to fit the theme:  musical chairs became Sing a Song of sixpence where the kids circled the table while I read this nursery rhyme, stopping at a covered pie tin at the conclusion of the rhyme.  If they uncovered the chocolate kisses, they got to take one and were then out.  The other unlucky tins contained things like rocks, grass, bark, and other unedibles.  They loved this game.

As an opening activity, when the kids arrived, I had them each make candlestick holders from a paper towel tube, paper plate, and cardstock "flame".  Then we played Jack be Nimble, with them jumping over the candlesticks when I said Jack, or jump.  This was a great game for the little ones.

Duck, Duck Goose became Little Miss Muffet's spider, demonstrated by the lady herself.

This was 5 little piggies, where the kids had to all pop "pig" balloons (I drew on faces and tails with a sharpie), to find the lines of the rhyme and put them together.

This was our opener game of name the nursery rhyme.  We photocopied 25 nursery rhyme photos from a book and asked who could name them. Surprisingly, very few guests could.

Other games not pictured were Little Bo Peep, who lost her sheep in our yard, and the kids had to find all 30 sheep pictures hidden in the backyard.  The one who found the black sheep won a prize.  We also played Charades using nursery Rhymes.

Cake:

I made each baby their own cake to eat: Humpty Dumpty for my son, Little Bo Peep for my daughter.  The guests all were able to eat the sheep.  As I am not experienced with fondant, Humpty's hat is made from fun foam, and his "clothes" and legs from scrapbook paper.  My husband constructed the "wall" from white-frosted cake; the "bricks" he formed by dipping the end of a matchbox in cocoa and "stamping" the wall with it.