We celebrated Aiden's 2nd birthday on Sunday with a circus/carnival party at our place. I had such a great time planning the party, baking and decorating that I am almost sad that I don't have a party to plan right now!
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| The invitation |
I set up 4 carnival games in the garage - I was hoping that we could do the carnival on the back patio, but his birthday happened to be during the first big storm of the year, so garage it was! I decorated the inside to look as circus-y as possible. The "tent" was a $20 find at Ikea and I made the little banner with red ric-rac, scrapbook paper and embellishments. I also took an old frame, painted it red and punched out scrapbook paper circles to spell out "Aiden's Circus" in the frame and put it on the tent. I spent a few months collecting reproduction vintage toys for prizes and put them into glass jars.
My mom came down the day before to watch Aiden while I baked. I made a white cake (with a surprise inside!) with vanilla buttercream frosting and white confetti cupcakes with bubblegum frosting for the kiddos. I also made some cookie pops with Aiden's name and 2s on them. There was popcorn and peanuts, too so we would have a little salt with all the sweets. No carnival would be complete without lemonade and fruit punch served in cute little "milk" jugs with red, blue and yellow swirly straws. The little jugs were actually saved starbucks frappuccino containers.
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| Yummy! |
I am not that good at cake decorating, so I kept it simple with white frosting and made the little "Aiden" flag banner out of lollipop sticks, bakers twine and scrapbook paper that matched the banner on the table. I put a thick red and white striped ribbon on the bottom. The little vintage clown was the inspiration for the party. When I found it on Etsy, I immediately recognized it as the same clown that sat on the top of my 2nd birthday cake!
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| This clown will now be a family tradition :) | | |
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| The kids had fun custom making lemonade/fruit punch combos! |
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| Of course, the adults get to have fun, too. Bubblegum martinis (vodka, Jones bubblegum soda and a gumball)! |
I made a second banner to go on the fireplace mantel - the 2 on the banner is actually a puzzle piece. The bouquet of swirly pops on top also served as party favors :)
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| Yeah, I haven't taken the banner off the mantel yet ;) |
The carnival was fun and gave the kids something to do during the party. I made all the games and the kids won tickets that they traded in for the prizes and candy at the end. There was goldfish toss, duck pond, clown shoot and beanbag toss.
I am not mean enough to give out real goldfish to the kids for the parents to take care of, so I cut goldfish out of scrapbook paper and glued them to the back of clear plastic cups. The prize was a goldfish bouncy ball. They won if they threw a ping pong ball into one of the cups - just like at the fair!
Duck pond was for the little kids. All they had to do was pick out a duck and if it had a star on the bottom they won. Aiden's cousin Sydney liked this game - she ended up taking all the ducks out and putting them in her prize bag, then she collected all the missed ping pong balls from the goldfish toss and put them into the water. Too cute. The little ones gathered around and splashed in the "pond" water. A lot.
Aiden and Lily splashed so much that they soaked their clothes, so we changed them into Aiden's Christmas jammies while their clothes dried.
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| Playing in Aiden's room while the clothes dried... |
The clown shoot game was for the older kids, they liked firing the nerf gun. My mom helped the younger kids once she figured out how to work the gun :) I didn't get any pictures of the bean bag toss, which is too bad, because I painted an awesome clown on a big piece of cardboard and cut out a big mouth for the bean bags to go through!
After the all the kids played all the carnival games we went back inside for cake, cupcakes and ice cream. By this time, Aiden was getting pretty tired. So sitting at his little table to blow out the candles just wasn't going to happen! Too bad, I didn't get my cute birthday cake picture. P.S. I made the cutest tablecloth for this table out of a vintage circus crib sheet! I think I am going to have to re-use this theme in a few years so I can use all this stuff again!
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| He was not happy about sitting there while everyone watched him |
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| He calmed down when I put him on my lap to listen to everyone sing to him |
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| Maybe next year he will be able to blow out his own candles ;) |
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| Told ya there was a surprise inside the cake! |
Then of course, opening presents...he was much more into it this year than he was last year.
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| We had helpers :) |
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| Ready to play! |
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| Gathering around to watch the gift opening |
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| Daddy and his little birthday boy! |
After everyone left, a few folks stuck around for pizza and drinks. We put on a movie in our bedroom and all the kids climbed on our bed to watch - they were just too darn cute! It was a pretty good, tiring, fun day! Thanks to everyone who came and helped us celebrate!
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| Ryan, Addison, Lily and Aiden - Eden was around here somewhere, too! |
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Stay tuned for pictures from the photo wall :)
