County Fair/Carnival Themed Birthday Parties

My motivation for today’s blog post comes from the fact that I am currently listing all of these fun party supplies for sale. In a way this saddens me, because this was by far my favorite theme we’ve had for my girl’s Birthday parties….so much so that I did it all over again 3 years later!! But, since I already did it twice, I suppose it’s time for me to pass it all on to another family.

I am much more proud of her 5th birthday party, so I almost want to tell you to scroll ahead… but maybe that’s in bad form. 🤣 For Story’s second birthday, it was a little bit smaller of a guest list, and I did a lot less for the decor and so forth. We mainly just had family and extremely close friends join us. I’ll share those details first, but then I’ll show you the larger, more exciting, 5th Birthday Party! For that she had invited so many friends (and their families) from school, we actually ended up with about 75 guests coming through. That’s just crazy. It felt like an actual carnival. That being said… we were hearing about it from everyone for quite some time after that. Everyone highly enjoyed the theme and all of the fun it brought with it!

2 YEARS OLD!

A cute, but simple invite I made using Stampin’ Up! supplies.

My angel in her themed outfit of course…

We had a face painting table, and a magic show prepared, as well as a sand art table! We recruited friends and family to help in each area.

Story’s dad made all sorts of carnival food: corn dogs, cheesecurds, and other fried goodness!

The games were fun! We also had a mini petting zoo and pony rides! I found someone in the area that does traveling petting zoos and ponies for parties. We Also reused her services for Story’s 5th birthday party. The kids LOVED it!

5 YEARS OLD!!!

Some more cute homemade invites! Each family was sent an invitation that had an RSVP postcard inside (registration form).

Once I received the registration form, I then sent out the tickets to the family for them to bring with to “get in the door”. This got a lot of the kids excited for party, as everyone likes to have tickets to something!

At the event, we had a ticket booth right in the front. My amazing friend Tami manned the booth. She would take the tickets they brought, and then give them wristbands and packets of passes for each game/stand. (that’s why the admission tickets above specify if they were to receive a baby admission, kid, or adult.)

The packets included one pass for each game and treat. They could play the games as many times as they wanted, but needed to use their pass in order to play for a prize. This assured that there would be enough prizes and/or treats for each child at each stop.

I had recruited friends and some high school students from the neighborhood to be my carnies for the afternoon. I made them each a badge to wear.

The games were fun for all ages! (I apologize that I didn’t get very good photos. 😦 Wish I could go back in time.)

The prize buckets were decorated with handmade labels.

They all had a blast with the body bopper suits.

Enough family members and friends had tents we could use, which was quite convenient. It had been calling for rain, but we actually ended up with so much sun the cover was good.

We had face painting, of course!

This time instead of a Magic Show, we made it a Balloon Magic Show. My now husband practiced some animals ahead of time. I’m not going to lie and say he highly enjoyed his “job”… ahhhh…. the things we do for love…

For our carnival foods we had cotton candy, snow cones (I got a snow cone machine online for super cheap), popcorn, nachos and cheese (Tami let us use her cheese machine), hot dogs, and many more treats!

And of course, the mini petting zoo and pony rides were a huge hit again!

It really was such a fun party! Even the parents enjoyed it! Maybe that was because of the delish adults-only drinks I served on the deck… but still!

I hope all the supplies and games help create some amazing Birthday memories for another little kid someday soon. 😉

A Dachshund Themed Birthday Party!

I was ecstatic when my then 7 year old daughter told me she wanted a Dachshund themed birthday party.  Three of my favorite things in the world are: 1. My daughter Story, 2. Dachshunds, and 3. Party Planning!

Every other year we do something small for birthdays rather than a huge party.  This was Story’s year to not go all out, so we planned a sleepover at our house with 7 of her best friends.  I am excited to share some of the cute wiener dog snacks and decor that we had at her party!

I wanted to do something with movement for the invitation.  One night I sat down in front of the tv and played with ideas, until I came up with this.  When you pull the “tag” to the right, the sausage grows longer, and reveals the invite info!  I’m not gonna lie… trying to create faces with random punches wasn’t easy to figure out at first.  I ended up using a word window punch for the ears, neck, and legs, heart punches (cut in half) for the face, and different circle punches for the feet, eyes, nose, and tail.

I prepared these fun favor bags for each guest ahead of time.

Here are the details for what’s inside:

I got these adorable favor bags from amazon.

Some wiener dog tattoos… and each girl got a slinky in their bag too. Slinky… slink… you get it…

This ice cube tray was used to make the crayons, as well as the chocolates that I will share below.

I made these doxie crayons! I was so proud! But I have to say… making crayons like this is not as easy as moms always say it is. MESSY!

The crayons were thick enough to stand up.

These little stuffed wieners make me so happy. I ordered them from a girl on etsy.

I ordered nine, just so there would be an extra one for me to keep. lol

Little girls love these rubber bands that keep their shape… I was super excited to find these wiener dog ones on ebay.

When the girls pulled the jewelry out of their bags there were so many “ooh’s and aah’s” – they loved them and were so excited to wear them!

I bought the charms on ebay, and used jump rings to attach them to a chain for the necklaces, and to these adorable, very sparkly pink bracelets I got from Michael’s.

I’m not gonna lie… I made myself a set as well. 🙂

The girls all LOVED their gift bags and it’s contents. 🙂

I got plain balloons, and decorated them using a wiener dog stamp my sister bought for me, and Staz-On ink. 

After searching long and hard, I came across these paper plates on zazzle.com.

The table was all set up before guests arrived, with plenty of Dachshund related snacks!

Story and her table set up. 🙂

Some Puppy Chow, and also some yummy cinnamon Puppy Chow. 🙂

I used dog bowls for the Puppy Chow for an added touch.

Snacks!

Very simple- but cute. Printed details made the faces and the tails, the bodies of pretzels are in rectangle cupcake liners.

I was happy with the pretzel weenies. 🙂

These pup’s faces were made using Nutter Butter crackers, shaped caramel for the ears (caramel squares were flattened and cut), candy eyes, and a chocolate chip for the nose. All the features were attached to the cracker using a little bit of peanut butter.

These little guys were almost too cute to eat!

Some Dachshund sugar cookies made by my cookie girl Tracy.

Scooby snacks and bonez candies.

These candies were hard to find – but they are one of Story’s favorites – plus they match the theme! You can order them online but you have to buy a LOT. So we went down to the grocery store and filled up a sandwich bag at the candy machine. 🙂

I used the above ice cube tray to make the chocolates.

They turned out great- and delicious!

I made these tiny butterscotch wieners using a silicone mold I purchased on etsy.

Of course the sandwiches needed to be bone shaped. A cookie cutter was used to pull it off. 

I printed the puppy off of the computer, and with Lee and Story’s help made this “Pin the Tail on the Doxie” game, which all of the girls had so much fun with!

The cake topper was made by a girl on etsy, and is something that Story can have as a keepsake. 🙂

Her presents from us were wrapped with this cute sparkly wrapping paper from zazzle.com.

Story of course wore wiener dog pajamas for her sleepover. 🙂

The party was a huge success, and everyone had a great time!  Happy birthday to my beautiful 8 year old!!  I love you to the moon and back!

    

A very special evening…

I want to start this blog post by apologizing for missing Wiener Wednesday yesterday.  I know some of you need your Dachshund fix, and I completely understand that.  I will make up for it next week, I promise. 🙂

In the meantime I have something else very cute to blog about…

My 7 year old daughter, Story, went to her first Father/Daughter Dance on Friday!  It was such a important night for her. When the PTO was presented with the idea for the dance in the beginning of the school year, I was thrilled that the girl who suggested it wanted to plan it as well.  But, then it turned out that when we were able to do the dance- was right when she was due to have her third child.  So- I figured I’d be planning and setting up the event and therefore wouldn’t be able to enjoy getting Story all dolled up for it.  😦  But something marvelous happened that rarely ever does- I had other moms step up and offer to put it together for the PTO!  For the first time in a long time there was an event that I didn’t have to do!  That meant I got to be home with Story, helping her get ready for her very special evening!

We had picked out all the elements earlier in the week:

T H E  D R E S S

Story’s favorite color is blue, and this dress is just so “her”.  (bought at Kohls)

 

T H E  N E C K L A C E

As you may recall, this diamond necklace (Kay’s Jewelers) was presented to Story at our wedding as a gift from Brad.  Perfect for her to wear on their special “date”.

 

T H E  E A R R I N G S 

I gave these to Story as a gift on the day of the dance.  So pretty!

 

T H E  S H O E S 

Story had some nice black heels- until our puppy chewed them up recently. So on the day of the dance I went and bought her these sparkly shoes, which she fell in love with.  Well.  I don’t like being the bearer of bad news, but the morning after the dance, Mabel (our youngest wiener who is under a year) chewed these up too.  So sad.  Story was heartbroken.  I can’t wait until Mabel is out of the chewing everything in sight stage.

 

T H E  H E A D P I E C E

With Story’s hair being so short, it’s a little difficult to dress it up.  This headpiece came from our neighbors last Summer, and it matched the dress so well you would think they were made to go together.  Perfect!

T H E  M A K E U P

Since it was a special occasion, Story got to wear makeup.  I think this was the most exciting part of getting ready for her…

 

She looked so beautiful, as per usual…

 

…and I am pretty sure she knew it.

 

Brad surprised her with a corsage.

 

And then they were off to the dance!

It was very hard to send them off without me.  I wanted to see them dance and have a good time!  But my friend Teri was there to take yearbook photos, so lucky for me she had a couple of Brad and Story, and Story and her daughter, to share with me too.

 

The night was a huge success, they both had a great time, and Story passed out in the car on their way home.  Next year, hopefully, we will be hosting a Mother/Son event too!  I can’t wait!

A “Frozen” Themed Water Park Birthday Party

Yep.  You read that right.

My daughter Story insisted on having her birthday party, which was at a water park, be themed after the movie “Frozen”.  She likes to challenge me.  At first I was a little stumped, but then 5 minutes later I wrote new lyrics to the song “In Summer”, and from there it was quite simple!

Here are her invitations I made using the new lyrics.  She loved her version of the song, and kept playing the song on her MP3 player, and singing her lyrics instead of the original ones.  It was pretty sweet. 🙂

 

 (sorry for the blurry pictures, I am just lazy today.)

The party took next to no prep at all.  I figured we were only going to spend about 20 to 30 minutes doing the “party thing” on our rented patio anyway, as the kids were all going to want to play in Tiki Island and go down water slides.  (I had figured correctly too.)  I threw together some very simple Frozen themed snacks, and that was about it!  That’s the great part of having your child’s party at a place that provides all of the entertainment for you!

To make it all fit, I printed some popular lines from the movie.  I ordered white cotton candy and just used a stencil on the bag to identify it as snow.  (the cheese and chocolate had a better set up planned, but the guys at the front gate took it because it was made out of glass.  As if the other stuff I brought wasn’t…. hmmmm…..)

 

I was pleasantly surprised that the kids actually built snowmen with their snacks!

The cake was ADORABLE thanks to my neighbor Tracy, with Tracy’s Sugar Moon Confectionery Co.  What’s impressive is that Story paused her movie on a specific scene, told me “this is what I want my cake to be of”, I took a photo of it with my camera, showed Tracy, and she made this cake which looks exactly like the photo I sent her!  Story loved that she could eat Olaf.  🙂

 

I just bought a “7” candle at the store, and covered it with glue and glitter for her.

 Some more stuff:

For the drinks we had bottles of water (melted snow) and then I also had Gatorade “Frost” to help keep kids hydrated on that hot and humid day.

It was one of the easiest parties I have done for Story.  Sometimes we just need “easy”.

The kids all had a blast and LOVED the water park!  The grown ups did too! 🙂

 

Each kid was sent home with their “Frozen” gift bags. Nothing special here, just bought a bunch of stuff from the party store.

 

My not-so-little-anymore girl had a wonderful 7th birthday, and a really good time at her party!  Good Lord I love this child…

A Minecraft Birthday Party

Last week my darling son, Carter had his 8th Birthday.  On his actual birthday, which was on Monday, Brad and I took him and his sister to Pizza Hut for his requested birthday dinner.  But I had secretly invited all of our family to meet us there- and he was so surprised to walk in and see everyone waiting for him- his Dad, Grandparents, Great Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins… plus there was cake and presents!  He had a really good birthday. 🙂

(I made the cake decor using a My Paper Pumpkin kit from Stampin’ Up!)

The following Saturday (a week ago today) was his birthday party with all of his friends.  He OF COURSE wanted it to be Minecraft themed, since he “lives” Minecraft right now.  If your child is into Minecraft, you understand how obsessed kids get over it.  Everything is about Minecraft…

I have tried to play Minecraft with Carter, but got really bored really fast.  I’m sorry.  So… when it came time to plan the party, I was a little lost and had to Google it.  I saw a million and a half ideas out there, and basically copied the stuff that I liked.  Lol.  I have no problem admitting that… I can’t come up with original ideas when I don’t know anything about the game myself!  I would love to give credit where credit is due, but I pulled ideas from so many different blogs and websites, I wouldn’t even know how to go back and find them all again.  So to everyone out there that has come up with original ideas for a Minecraft party and then shared them online- I thank you!

We had the party at Boulder’s Climbing Gym in Madison.  That turned out to be one of the best ideas yet- the kids (and grown-ups) all loved it!  First we had the party room, where we had Minecraft themed snacks, pizza, cake, and Carter opened presents.

         

The cakes were of course Minecraft themed as well.  Carter’s favorite is Spice Cake, and not too many kids love that, so he had his own “Steve” cake that was Spice Cake, and there were vanilla and chocolate “Creeper” cupcakes for all of his friends.

He was thrilled with everything.  He had told me all of his favorite “inventory items” ahead of time, so I knew what to include when planning the snacks.  I also had Minecraft necklaces and bracelets for all of the kids to go home with.

After the party room portion of the event was over with, we all headed out to the gym, where the harnesses were put on, and training commenced.  The kids all had so much fun climbing for the next couple of hours… and the grown-ups got a work out belaying for them.  I climbed as well, but to my surprise I was the only adult that wanted to.  I love climbing- it’s something I used to do a lot of before I had kids, and I had fun doing it.  I plan to take the kids back there again soon, and can hopefully convince a friend or two to come with me…

The party was a huge success!!!  Carter has been lucky to have some very exciting birthday parties, and Story has as well.  Because I have the urge, I plan to write up a post soon about the parties we have done in the past. 🙂

What a group!!!

—-October 31st —-

I had the privilege of putting together the Halloween Party for my son Carter’s 2nd grade classroom.   I love planning their classroom parties!  The kids have so much fun… and so do I. 🙂

We started a party off with a game called… well okay- I don’t have a name for it because I made it up.  I love the idea of using spaghetti and other foods to make a bag of “guts” that the kids can reach in to and feel… and I also like the idea of the skeleton relay races, where each team races to put their skeletons together.  So- I kind of combined the two for a fun game!  I got these skeletons from Hobby Lobby, and took them apart.  Then I hid the bones in a bag full of guts (cooked spaghetti noodles, whole peeled tomatoes, and crushed tomatoes).  There were four teams (each team had their own guts and bones).  The kids took turns reaching into the bag of guts (no peeking) to find their bones.  Once a team had all their bones out and skeletons assembled (just laid out on the paper correctly), they won!  Of course, as I always do with classroom parties, I surprised the kids and had EVERYONE win a prize for playing.  The kids absolutely loved this game.  They cringed as they felt through the “guts” to find their bones, and they thought it was so funny.

The prizes were goody bags I had prepared, with a bunch of Halloween toys and treats.

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The next game I have done for a couple classroom parties in the past, because it is always such a big hit.  First, the teacher has to leave the room- no peeking or listening in.  While she is out, I pick one boy student and one girl.  Those two are our ghosts!  I put a sheet over them, attach paper circles for eyes and a nose, and have them stand in the middle of the room in front of a chair.  (in this case, sit, because the kids are getting older now, and were tall enough that you could see their shoes under the sheets, so they had to sit to be completely covered).  Then the teacher, with eyes closed, gets walked into the room and sits on the chair facing the ghosts.  The rest of the class stands behind her, where she can’t see them, and they have to be very quiet!  Then the teacher gets to look at the two ghosts, ask them yes or no questions (the ghosts nod their answers), and she has to try and guess who they are!  So much fun, the teachers and students love it!

Ms. Oertel’s prize for guessing the ghosts’ identities was a cute wooden coffin full of chocolate… I have been told teachers need chocolate to get through the day… so it was fitting. lol. Here she is, surrounded by her students as she opened her prize.

After the games were done, it was time to make a craft!  I chose this cute skeleton made out of q-tips.  This is the sample that I had made for the students to see.  I had precut all of their q-tips and bagged them, so all I had to do was give each kid their baggie and a black piece of paper.  There is never much time for these parties, so I like to do as much prep work as possible before I go to the school, so we don’t go over the allotted time.

Last but not least- snack time!!!  I had a couple other parents from the classroom bring in some treats.  We had sliced apples with caramel dip (which was DELICIOUS, and I plan to soon share the recipe that the mom who made it gave to me),  a cheese platter with sausage and crackers,  and juiceboxes.  And I had brought in some store-bought Halloween cupcakes, and fruit cups.  I wanted to turn the fruit cups into a Halloween treat, so I simply drew faces on them with a sharpee.

The party was a hit!  All the students had fun, and the teacher was pleased as well. 🙂

I didn’t get to help with my daughter’s 1st grade classroom party this time, but I did stop over for some quick photos:

By the end of the school day- I was EXHAUSTED.  I threw out my back.  Again.  So I am on muscle relaxers and pain killers, and I get drained of energy really fast.  But the night still had a lot more in store for us.  As soon as we got home from school, we scarfed down Pizza Hut, and then got ready for Trick or Treating.  We met up with two other families we are close to and all headed out to get some candy!  I was worried the kids would not enjoy it because it was cold and rainy- but I was wrong- nothing can bring down their spirits, especially when candy is involved!

What a crew!  (the third picture is of our cousin Bobby, the firefighter, handing out candy at his truck)  We all had a great time, and got more candy than what we will be able to eat, that’s for sure!

I hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween!!!

A Weekend Full of FRIGHTS!

This past Friday was a very busy day for me.  Actually… the past few weeks have been very busy for me.  For the third year in a row, I put on the rather large Trunk or Treat event for the Primary and Elementary schools in our District.  So much work!  But… So worth it!  This year was the best yet- a huge turnout, and everything ran smoothly.  Hundreds of kids came, with their families of course… the gym was PACKED with dancers… the DJ that I hired this year was amazing.  He interacted so well with the kids, got them all out there dancing and having fun.  He played games with them even.  Everyone had a blast!  Huge shout-out to Dance Stimulators in Orfordville.  If you are looking for a DJ to hire for any kind of an event, definitely give them a call.

And that’s just the dancing!  In the cafeteria we served dinner… hot dogs & chili.  Outside we had the actual “Trunk or Treat” part of the event.  I love that families really go “all-out” when decorating their trunks.  Here are just a few…

I arranged some fun baskets that people could buy raffle tickets for.  Those are always a huge hit. There was an “Autumn” themed one, a “Halloween” one, and a “Thanksgiving” one.

There was a 50/50 raffle, and I also prepared two prizes for the “Best Decorated Trunks”, and prizes for the “Best Costumes”. (one for a boy and one for a girl).  I had set up voting committees ahead of time to choose the winners- and was pleasantly surprised that my son was picked for the boy’s best costume!  When he was picked, the girls on the committee didn’t even know that was my son in there… lol…

To help this make more sense… this is the character from Minecraft that he is dressed as:

He so deserved to win!! He and his dad worked together to make the costume out of boxes, and I am VERY impressed with the turnout.

My daughter’s costume was not too shabby either.  She wanted to go as “Elphaba”.  She has never seen The Wizard of Oz, but has seen the play Wicked, so to her, it’s not The Wicked Witch of the West- it’s “Elphaba”!  We painted her green and all…

The night was a blast!  I was running the whole time.  The hard part of being in charge of it all is that I don’t get to spend a lot of time actually enjoying it with my kids.  😦  But they had a lot of fun with their friends, dancing and partying it up.

About a week before the event, I had another mom from the school step up and offer to help me finalize the plans and do help on the day of as well.  She was truly a blessing!  Because of her I did actually get to enjoy the event a little this time!  Kari has been so much fun to get to know- and I have to share these adorable pumpkin coasters she made for me:

How cute!!!

I have to also say – Brad (fiance) and Justin (my kids’ Dad) were so much help at the event.  I can’t thank them enough.  They helped with the set up, and the running around, and in the kitchen serving food… I am lucky to have them in my life. 🙂

We were so beat after Trunk or Treat- we went right to bed afterwards…and slept right past Saturday morning.  lol.  When we finally woke up, Brad and I headed to Frightfest at Six Flags Great America.  It’s become kind of a tradition of ours each year.  This time we went just the two of us, which was GREAT.  We rarely get the chance to do much- just us.  It was cold out, and the lines for rides were horrific.  We only went on two roller coasters the whole day!  But that didn’t stop us from having an amazing day.  We had so much fun… and we went through 5 or 6 haunted houses.  I screamed a lot, and even swore at one of the workers when he jumped out at me.  (hey… I turned around and apologized afterwards…)  After we left there we went out for dinner, and came home and passed out again.  lol.  We are getting too old for this craziness I think… yet we will do it all again next year for sure!!!

(here is one of the creepy scenes set up at Six Flags.  I love that the decorate the whole park for Frightfest.)

Story’s Sweet Birthday Party…

I am FINALLY going through the pictures from my daughter Story’s 6th birthday party that took place almost two months ago.  Better late than never!

When I first started planning her party I knew two things for sure- it needed to be small this year, and she wanted it to be about candy.  Yes… candy.  She LOVES candy.  The idea of having a “Sweet” theme instantly made me think of a “Sweet Sixteenth” party, minus the “teen” part.

The invites I made were very simple, with a little added sparkle. I love this fold because it makes a statement without requiring a lot of work.

Since we needed to go small this year, we decided to have the party at our house, with some easy decorations, and of course… lots of sweets!

I tried to add some little touches to dress it up a little- like the little paper flags I made for the sandwiches and cotton candy cup cakes! 🙂  The cake was less tedious than it looks.  It took longer to divide up the skittles by color than it did to actually decorate the frosting with them.  The banner I made using my Sizzix Big Shot dies and some scrap ribbon.  And one of my favorite touches was the little candy machine cards- I made one for each child that came to the party.  The back slides open so that they can access the mini m&m’s in them.  Fun!

By using stuff I already had in my craft room, I was able to keep the cost down, and Story was very happy with how her party looked. She was super excited for the fun to begin!

After the girls arrived, dressed to the nine’s, it was time to eat, drink, and be merry!

  Cheers!

Next, it was time to primp and pamper!  The girls each got to get their hair done, make-up applied, and nails painted.

Thank you so much to Jackie, Gracie, and Kailynn for helping get the girls ready for their individual photo shoots!

Now that all the girls were looking their best, they each had a turn getting their pictures taken.  Here are a few of my favorites:

Group shots!

All of the girls had so much fun, and felt so special during the photo sessions. 🙂

After we were all done, it was time for cake and presents.  (as if there hadn’t already been enough sugar and spoiling…)

Everyone had a great time, and my little girl was absolutely adorable. It’s so bittersweet watching her grow up.  Okay, I’m going to end this post now before I get emotional…