Girls Carnival Birthday Party

My girls turned 2 and 4 within 29 days of each other! So we decided for the first time ever to have a joint birthday for them. This to me meant twice the guest list and twice the budget but for ONE party. Seems only fair right? So I decided a Carnival theme was a super fun party where I could be as creative as I wanted and pull it off fairly cheaply considering the number of people attending and the amount of stuff to do. Here are the girls ready for their big day (thanks to my friend Adrianna who made their birthday tutus and matching hair pieces!)



Here are some of the decorations. My friend Trish let me borrow her Red Lemonade Stand which I converted into a ticket booth. There were carnival bags with each child's name on them that had some lollipops, stickers and tickets they could use to play games.



I designed the invitations, mailing labels, and much of the party decor to match. The main colors were red and white carnival stripes and turquoise blue with white polk-a-dots. I decided last minute to rent a bounce house and was psyched to learn the guy was throwing in a cotton candy machine for free! BONUS!



We kept the food simple. Hotdogs and popcorn. Lemonade and water. We also had a treats table that had swirl lollipops, cake pops made to look like caramel apples, cotton candy, circus peanuts, and the cake.



We played games that included, Lollipop Pull, Duck Pluck, Carnival Wheel, Clown Ring Toss, Football Throw, and we had Carnival Tattoos in lieu of a face painter since they charge more per hour than most attorneys I know. ;)



We bounced... and bounced... and bounced... and bounced some more.



We had lunch, cake and cotton candy and too many lollipops!



But best of all, we had lots of friends to celebrate with us. This was more than a celebration of my girls birthdays. It was a celebration of life, of innocence, of wonder... It was a celebration of my new life that was forever changed 4 yrs ago. When not only did I become a mother but I hung up my corporate career aspirations and traded them in for zoo trips, potty training, tantrums, doctors visits, pre-schools, playgroups, runny noses, time-outs, etc. I have survived the last four years and have enjoyed my time with these two (for the most part- ha ha). I have made lots of friends and so have my girls, who have helped us along this path. Friends who were there for us when we welcomed Ryen and made our family four instead of 3. And these people love my children!! And they love them good. Which is great since we don't have any Family here. :)



The girls loved the party! They had a lot of fun and they woke up the next morning and jumped on me in bed and said Mommy can we go play games and jump in the bounce house again. I was like no sorry babies, the Carnival left town last night while you were sleeping. ;)






Now although some think I went a little overboard, I don't think so. It may have been time consuming and elaborate and took a lot of blood (literally) sweat and almost tears to pull it off. But over the top would have been hiring clowns, magicians, face painters, REAL carnival rides or games etc. So really it could've been a lot worse and if I were Tori Spelling, it would've been. But I am not. So I did the best I could with my imagination, some cheap online party sites and my best friends- Walmart and the Dollar Store. Oh and my home computer. :) Their next joint birthday party wont be till 2012 and I think I already have the theme picked out.... HA HA HA!!