A Carnival Celebration For The Birthday Boy

My oh my, how the time flies around here. Today my sweet little nugget wakes up a four year old and I'm not sure how my mama heart feels about it. It can be such a catch 22 to see our kids grow. We had so much fun celebrating him at his carnival birthday party this weekend.

Ever since my sister and I took the boys to a carnival earlier on in the summer he was asking for a carnival party. I thought, ok, I think we can work with this. I actually had a lot of fun planning this, as I do with all of their parties. Most of you know I enjoy a good Pinterest inspired party and I'm not even mad about it. I think when people think about parties like that they start assuming dollar signs ($$$). Yes, parties can be expensive but if you plan them right they don't have to be. 

Of course what it all comes down to, regardless of backdrops, feature walls, or themed food, is the fun and smiles that the kids have. On the other hand, if you also enjoy all those things (like I do) then you can incorporate them by using things that you already have or getting creative with the concepts.

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Last week I was rsvping to someone else's party when it dawned on me, oh shoot, we have nugget's party this weekend! For some reason it felt like I had soooo much more time to get everything together. I always had the general idea and theme for what we were doing, but aside from a few amazon purchases (thank God for them), I had nothing else prepared. I usually work well under pressure so I knew I could pull it off, but it wasn't without a few trips to the dollar store and amazon packages arriving everyday. I picked up this four shirt for him (that came with one day shipping) that he looked so cute wearing. I am happy to say, this time around there were no extreme late nights for me and everything came together really quickly.

What I learned through planning his party is that a lot of people are confused about what a carnival is and what a circus is. If you look up carnival parties online to get some inspiration, all of the sudden you see that people have elephants and big tops at the party, and I'm like, hold up, since when did a carnival ever have animals?? I don't know about you, but the carnivals around here are all about the food, rides, and games. Now that we have that cleared up, I'm going to focus on things that are relatable to a carnival.

Remember those wood pallets I stained for C's baby dedication? Well surprise, surprise, here they are again. I warned you all that they will probably be at most of our parties. They worked out perfectly here for a focal point on our food/dessert table. I took some basic string and strung it across them and then used clothes pins to secure bags of popcorn and cotton candy across them. Everyone got to take one as they wanted and I loved how it transformed the table decor.

I also used popcorn holders for decor around his party with yellow tissue paper to look like popcorn. I took the larger popcorn holders (all of this was found at the dollar store) and did centerpieces for the tables with tickets, candy, and balloons in them. We had typical carnival food, hot dogs, hamburgers, corn dogs, french fries, along with some sandwiches and other sides.

We had games for the kids they could play and win prizes for that also served as some of the things for their party bags, which were also popcorn holders by the way. My father in-law made this awesome wheel that spun around and the kids got to pick the color they thought it would land on. I recycled the baby's empty formula containers and made a can toss game out of them. We also had a bean bag toss that was fun and hung from the trees. One of my favorites though was old bottles we found that we recycled and used these ring toss rings for a bottle toss game. But, I think the one thing that really gave the feel like we were at a carnival were these multi-color pennant flags that we strung all throughout the backyard. I love them so much that I keep joking with Eric that we should just leave them up for the rest of the summer.

The weather ended up being beautiful, which I am so thankful for. I forgot to take a picture of it but we also had rubber ducks (all taken from the kids toy box) that we wrote numbers on the bottom and had floating in a little pool for the kids to pick and match the numbers. We also had some other yard games for the kids to play that the adults also jumped in on and had some fun with as well. We used our bounce house that also makes an appearance at most parties and had water balloons for the kids that they went nuts over. The best part was seeing him happy and enjoying all the fun.

We tried for a cute family pic but the cotton candy and a sneaky little brother that kept pulling party hats off made it interesting.

To my sweet birthday boy, you have been melting our hearts ever since you came into this world. There's something about your personality that is so genuine and caring. You have been rocking your new role as a big brother and have become so independent these last few months. I'm to blame for part of that as a lot of my attention has been on your baby brother. Through it all you have been so caring and most of the times (hence most of the times) you are understanding about it. You still give amazing hugs and such sweet kisses that melt my heart over and over again.

You love riding your quad and most people can't believe how well you handle it and that you started riding when you were three. Often times I think you are wise beyond years. You observe so much around you and know when to pull back and when to step up to things. You pick and choose the right moments to be extra loud, like when others are sleeping ;) and tell some of the most animated and amazing stories. You love playing uno and dominos and I have to laugh because when I was your age I'm not even sure I knew what both of those were. Your smile lights up the room and your infectious giggle brings a smile to everyone's face. I pray that God would continue to pour out his blessings upon you, that you would always keep Him first in your life, and that you would always remain as sweet as you are. Dream big my baby boy.

Reptile Birthday Party-Happy 5th My Sweet, Boy

When my little guy first said he wanted to have a reptile party, I thought, ok, that's a little different but so fitting for him. I knew I could make it happen so we quickly agreed on the theme. I did what most people do and headed to Pinterest to get some ideas and see what others were sharing. I love utilizing Pinterest for inspiration, but sometimes it's not always easy to recreate certain looks (I've had a few Pinterest fails in my day) or certain items you're looking for can't be found.

If you've been following this little space of mine then you know A loves all types of critters. It seems like more often than not I find him with something in his hand or he's off trying to catch something. He really seems to have no fear and I haven't figured out if that's a good thing or a bad thing just yet.

We wanted to make his 5th birthday extra special for him so we decided we would have someone come to the house that could bring along all his favorites. You know, snakes, lizards, a baby alligator, just the everyday household friends. We went with Rizzo's Reptiles and could not have been happier. Jesse made his day so special and he's still talking about how he's the only one of his friends that's ever had an alligator at their party.

I'm not going to lie, I had a lot of fun planning his party too and I know that some of these things the five year olds didn't care about, but I love adding in small details that made it just as special for me to be able to put a personalized touch on things. 

If you've been a reader since wayyyy back when, eekk going on five years now since I started this blog after A was born, then you might recognize some of the ideas and decor from his first birthday. We had a camping theme for him and I incorporated a lot of the same ideas into his reptile party. My father in-law made this wooden cake tower for him for his first birthday and we've stored it and used it several times since. It was so special to be able to pull it out again and have it there for his fifth birthday.

We kept the menu simple but had fun with some food themes. I love some good food themes. My friend Becky from PaperieOffPark created the gator-ade labels for me and all the food tent cards. She also did them for little nugget's shark themed party and I am always impressed with how they come out!

Ok, so let's talk about the day. If you caught my insta stories then you saw some behind the scenes fun. We decided to wait and tell him the day of his party that he would actually be having live reptiles there with him. I had a complete fail moment when I thought I was taping his reaction but I don't know what in the world my pregnancy brain did and I got two seconds of him running away all excited to tell his little friends that a snake was coming. Let's just say he was sooo excited and felt like the star of the day, as he should.

We've had so much rain over here lately that I was worried about his party because little nugget's was a wash out. Thankfully we could not have been blessed with a better weekend for his party. It was sunny and in the low 70's and perfect for being outside. We had the bounce house set up for him, stumps set out for all of his friends to sit on during the reptile presentation, corn hole out in the backyard for anyone to play with, and plenty of tables for the adults to sit and relax at.

We put together a head table for him and his friends to sit at and enjoy lunch and then had separate food tables and a cake table set up.

Overall we really couldn't have asked for things to go any better. I got to sit and catch up with some of my friends while the kids played, everyone left with full bellies, and plenty of goodies in their goodie bags.

I still can't believe that my little man is five today. It's crazy how quickly the years go by.  I'm trying to eat up every moment that I can with him. Even on those crazy days when we still have meltdowns and are trying to work through our feelings. A, we know that God has big plans for you. You are such a smart, creative, and amazing little man that doesn't miss a beat. I've said it before but your memory seriously blows my mind and the things you think of far exceed your years. We pray that God will continue to instill passions and desires in your heart that will be utilized for amazing things as you continue to grow older and mature. Keep shining and never let anyone dull your confidence. We love you more than you will ever know!