A {Circusy} 1st Birthday Party

Linley is 1, and the party is over. Now what? I guess it's a good thing I have hundreds of pictures, because that will certainly keep me busy for the next few days. Here are some pictures of the party set up.

We had carnival games,cotton candy, popcorn, a photo booth, a clown, andsnow cones for the first hour of the party. My mother-in-law made the darling fishing pond. She put pennant flags on it after I took these pictures. They were darling. And, she also supplied the milk carton game. We made a photo booth out of a striped cabana tent I found on Amazon. I wasn't sure at first about having props, but I'm so glad we did. Everyone loved the fake mustaches, colored wigs, and clown noses. It turned out so fun. For a minute, I actually felt like I was at a real carnival. I think all of the kids really enjoyed this part of the party.

This pennant banner turned out so fun. My mom made it for the party. Each word is on a different strip, so we can re-use it over and over.

The kids collected tickets at each of the games, and got to turn them in at the end of the party as their favor. Everyone got one of each thing: a punch balloon, a clown nose, a Chinese YoYo, bubbles, a whoopie cushion, a lolipop, and bubbles. I found plastic bags at Ikea with colored stripes and dots that worked perfectly for take home bags.

We only had family at the party, but we had about 50 people. We felt like we needed to have some tables, so we threw together some centerpieces using Blumeboxes, feathers, yarn balls, crepe paper, and lollipops. We scattered juggling balls, and plastic circus animals around to make it a little more circusy.

I saw a Circus Sign here and wanted to make one for the party. I enlisted the help of my wonderful husband. We used wood, paper mache 3D letters, and Christmas lights. It wasn't hard, but it was time consuming. Totally worth it though. It looked great once it got dark, and really made it feel circusy. Is that even a word? I keep using it.

We kept the food simple. Hot dogs, chips, fruit, and vegetables. It doesn't look like there's much fruit in the picture above. There was. I guess I didn't snap a picture fast enough. We had toppings for the hot dogs like bacon, cheese, dill pickles, sweet relish, and of course ketchup and mustard.

We had fun with the vegetable tray. My mom used a paper straw and a pom pom to make it circusy. There's that word again! We put pepper rings on the straw.

I was so happy with the way the cake turned out. I thought maybe we'd make our own, but my Mom saved the day and ordered one. Good thing she did. Kristen Hill made it. I absolutely loved the little glittery L on Linley's little cake.

Linley won't remember this party. I don't think she even knew it was all for her, but I'm okay with it. I think everyone had fun. It was a fun night. One, we (and she) can remember when we scan through all the pictures.