Close your eyes & imagine the smells, the sounds of the carnival. You might smell hot dogs or fresh cotton candy or even popcorn. You might hear a carnival worker shouting "WINNER!" as a youngster throws a baseball to tip over milk bottles. When you open your eyes, you may be surprised to find yourself in the Dean's backyard at Ashton's 5th birthday party!
It all began one warm summer day 5 years ago while I was on maternity leave holding a sleeping tiny Ashton in my arms. I began envisioning our backyard with trees and grass, with vegetables and flowers. Then I imagined my little Ashton running around with primary colored balloons trailing him; laughing and smiling, the sun shining on his cheeks. It was his backyard too after all, and I could picture warm summer birthday parties here with all our friends & loved ones. As my little man grew, so did my imagination for a one-of-a-kind little boy birthday carnival. I knew it would be quite an undertaking and decided to save it for his 5th birthday. Though he turned 5 on June 25th I waited to throw the party a week late, so that his out of town cousins could attend, making it that much more special & memorable.
When I think of a carnival, I think of 3 things: Games...Prizes...Food. So of course his party would be centered around these; sort of like a three ring circus. With all the cousins invited I needed to divide them up into groups or teams to play the games and we ended up with four teams of four (yes 16 kids). The teams then rotated through each game. First, there was ring toss where the kids would take turns tossing 5 brightly colored rings onto different sized pegs to win the prize. Then we had balloon darts. I stapled 40-50 balloons to a piece of plywood with a large staple gun and hand painted the word "DARTS" at the top. The kids each took turns throwing darts to pop the balloons. Next they tried their hand at tip the milk where I used wooden milk bottles and baseballs...even the "littles" were great at this game. Last game was sort of an invented one, not normally found at a carnival, but fun just the same. A specially designed water balloon cage held a water balloon and used a timer to slowly tick down until a pin hidden inside popped the balloon. The kids had to pass the balloon cage around in a circle, hoping they were not the one left holding it when the time ran out since whoever was would end up a bit wet! That one brought out another spectacular carnival sound; squeals of laughter! Then the grand finale: a red, white & blue pinata!
The carnival menu included hot dogs, individual bags of chips, potato salad, snow cones, cotton candy and popcorn, whew! And once all the kids were worn out from all the games & jumping in the bounce house, we covered the lawn with blankets & pillows and watched an outdoor movie (thanks Joe!) where the munchkins got to enjoy their candy, glow sticks, light up bouncy balls and of course the moon & stars.
It took a bit of planning and a lot of helping hands but my dream had come true. My little man was running around with an enormous smile across his face and his eyes twinkling...with balloons in tow.
Special thanks to Mom, Dad, Amy, Heidi, Joe, Carolee & Sharla! Couldn't have done it without you!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment