Emma's 4th birthday - a carnival party!

Emma turned 4 on Friday. I must admit - I love planning birthday parties! I mean I love it :) We had a carnival in the backyard and it was a blast. We had hotdogs and popcorn (and some grown-up food too!), snow cones, and of course cake and ice cream. We had lots of games, carnival music, the bouncy house and the ball pit. It's a little hard to see, but these are some of the "stations" for the party.



I rarely get them both looking at the camera and smiling at the same time!







Poor Emma with all the boys in her life... there was only one other girl besides Emma.



The popcorn machine was a huge hit. Well worth the rental fee. We got extra popcorn "just in case" - but by the end of the night, every extra bit was gone!



The kids had fun playing the games - some games were even played multiple times. There were prizes at every game that they could put in their treat boxes when they won. I made signs for each game - some of the kids couldn't read, but it was still cute :)











Notice how yummy the twisty-pop prize was - it couldn't even come out for a minute to play a game!



Somehow the blindfold got lost - so they all got the nose right on. No one even closed their eyes. Stinkers! (Notice the twisty-pop sticks again. Must have been really yummy!)



My favorite part about the cupcake display? The Mike's bottle in the background. (Whoops!) Also in the background is the horse pinata. We got good use out of that - 2 years in a row. (Last year she had a horse party.)



I love all the preparation and planning for my kids' parties. I've been teaching myself how to make cakes. One of these days I'll take a cake decorating class but for now I wing it. It's not really about saving the money - it's fun for me to do the cakes myself. Joe thinks I'm nuts :) I'm just hoping I don't make a cake wreck!





Now if only the clean-up fairy would come to my house immediately after the party.... ;)