Our kids only get BIG birthday parties when they are 5, 8, 12, 16 and 18. They get dinner and gifts from their siblings on the other years but on these special years they get a big ol' party. This happens to be Dash's 8th birthday! He is getting baptized. He is going into the 3rd grade. He is starting scouts. SO many big things are happening. He wanted a Carnival Birthday. I thought it would be pretty easy. I own an industrial snow cone machine. I have a friend that owns a big pop corn machine. Another friend was lending me some carnival games and I thought I could make up a few others. A big ol' prize table! It seemed pretty easy. (hmmm, think again) I did it up right though for my special little man, and boy is he special!
This was the picture for his "kissing booth" (picture of that below)
of course Juliet had to take one too. She has to do everything her big brother does! She LOVES him!
This is the night before the party....sorting the prizes for the prize table. This is where I spent the bulk of my money. I wanted the kids to feel like they were at chukee cheese. They would get tickets at all the games and be able to spend them at the table to fill their own goodie bags. I ran into a great sale at Wal-Mart and was able to get a couple BIG items for cheap. So there were things priced for 1 ticket all the way up to 100 tickets.
The pize table all set up. Candy was REALLY popular. I didn't want to rent a cotton candy machine but you have to have cotton candy at a carnival. It's kind of expensive though. I put it on the prize table though. That way, if it was important enough for them to spend their tickets on, if they wanted it over something else then that is what they would choose. I actually had some left over. Things I thought would be really really popular were to some kids but not to others.
Face painting! A must! Brandon was awesome. I don't know if you have to have a professional though. I think you could have a teenager with some set designs do it or even some fake tattoos and the kids would be happy. BUT it did take up some time and was a popular station!
How could it not be when he was doing stuff like this though!!
This was one of our games.... It was where you guess where the ball is under the cup. I tried to have most of the games easy enough that my older son and his friends could run the games. I was able to rope them into helping along with my daughter and some of her friends in the ward and some parents. NOT a party you can do alone.
Knock the tin cans down. (normally you do this with a baseball...we did it with a big bean bag)
Bean bag toss. This is a game that I borrowed. I think it is one you could make though if you needed to.
Penny toss.... this is an all time favorite carnival game of mine and became one of the kids favorites too. There all different sizes of dishes and You toss a penny in a dish. That's it. Simple. Except that pennies bounce out the dish! Crazy. At the carnival you actually get to keep the dish that it lands in so you always tried to go for the goblet or the pretty butterfly dish but usually won the ashtray. At our penny toss you got 5 pennies and won tickets for landing pennies in the dish. It was still super fun!
The birdie toss. Self explanatory.
Ring toss. Another very loved game. I just used IBC bottles, some still had IBC in them and plastic bracelets. I had some taller bottles in the back of some spanish soda. You got 2 tickets for those.
Football throw. (We had soft footballs) Another borrowed game.
The duck pond. (the third borrowed game) You scoop up a duck and if it has an x on the bottom you get a ticket. Very easy. Especcially for very small kids. If you do this one just make sure they are weighted ducks.
The ping pong toss. You toss a ping pong ball into cups that have red, blue or yellow paper in the bottom of them. Each one is worth a different amount and you that is the amount of tickets you get. (red=1 blue =2 yellow=3) The kids loved this one too.
Popcorn and snowcones! A must!
This was like a cake walk but we just drew the number out of the bowl and if you were standing on the number then you won 2 tickets. You didn't even need to stop the music. You could just have your helper say stop because he just pulled numbers out the bowl. Very easy and fun!
the Elders stopped by and won a prize....mustaches were very popular!
The birthday boy! One of the mom's asked Brandon for his card. We laughed and laughed.
There were so many people there that Dash had to open his gifts after they all left.
He was a very spoiled boy this year. Everyone was very very generous! One of my favorite things he said was to Brandon. he said "Mom really over done her self didn't she!?" I sure love that kid!
Here is the infamous "kissing booth" You guess how many kisses are in the jar and you won the jar of kisses! This was another fun station that was easy and didn't need any extra help!
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