Hostess With The Mostess

I decided to throw my son, Matthew, a "Let's Go Bananas" party for his 3rd Birthday which was held on 2 March 2013 at the Southern Hills Community Centre on the Mount Edgecombe Golf and Country Estate in Durban, South Africa.  I hired Guy from Monkeynastix www.monkeynastix..co.za to provide the kids with entertainment.  He set up his equipment on the front lawn of the Community Centre in a cylindrical shape and guided the kids through each of the toddler gymnastic activities.  I ordered the "Go Bananas" printable collection online from HWTM and I had the printing done locally by Gregg of Yesman Printing www.yesman.co.za.

I sourced banana foam sweets and the gorgeous Music Monkeys for the kids party favours from Lick your Lips Importers & Distributors of Sweets & Novelties in Johannesburg, South Africa www.lickyourlipsimporters.com.  My friend Traci screen printed one of the signs from the "Go Bananas" collection onto Matthew's cake and it turned out beautifully.  Megan, a dear friend of mine, had the monkey biscuits custom made (a definite highlight of the party)!  I decided to keep sweets down to a bare minimum so I made packets of popcorn which were branded with stickers from the printable collection.  I bought little plastic containers and lids from Party Themes www.partytheme.co.za and filled them with pineapple jelly.  I also made paper cones using the pattern printables from the collection and filled them with chocolate cherios so the kids could string the cherios into jungle necklaces. I had a bbq for the adults and provided boerewors rolls (hot dogs) with monkeyglad sauce.  I replaced the bottled water, monkey gland sauce, ketchup and mustard bottle labels with bottle wraps from the printable collection.  I used bunches of fresh bananas for decor on the adults table and used the silhouttes and patterned paper from the collection as 'underplates' / place mats. I wrapped the party flags around green, yellow, blue and orange straws and served banana split shakes and fruit cocktails for the adults (the kids enjoyed them too).  It was a fantastic morning and the kids had a ball!