Zoey's 3rd Birthday Party

One big party dilemma has been solved and I am so relieved! One of my two worries about having 15 Midway games was how am I going to afford 25 prizes for each freakin booth? Thankfully crisis adverted - thanks to my mom and all the stuffed animals (230+) I have well over the amount I need for each game booth. And the kids who attend the party are going to go home with a HELL of a loot! Unlike regular carnivals, you get to play until you win and if you are too small to play correctly -you STILL win! They will each be going home with stuffed animals galore in all shapes and sizes, bubbles, play-doh, mini slinky dogs, loads of Dum Dum pops, tattoos and kaleidoscopes. And the parents don't have to worry about carrying all of the small stuff because upon arrival when they go to the ticket booth, they will get a good sized handle bag with all their game and food tickets. I do feel for the parents of the kids that win the HUGE stuffed animals, but they can always go toss it in the car instead of carrying it around the rest of the party!



This is the ticket booth in it's current incarnation, a puppet theater. We are going to take of the clock dials and put a "TICKETS" sign there and we are also going to add sides for the party so that we can have ticket bag storage. My 5 1/2 year old niece Lexi has agreed to man the booth for me =)

Now, my second dilemma about having 15 game booths. Who the hell am I gonna talk into running them?!? LOL I've got a list of potential victims, eeerrr-- I mean volunteer's, but the trick is to talk them into it and actually have them show up on the day and on time. I hate relying on other people for anything because I feel like I am the only one who can do it properly - BUT, for this, there is no way around it -- I've GOTTA have help. My incentives as of right now to bribe with are: its for Zoey, it will be fun, you only have to stay at your game station until each kid plays and wins a prize, once thats over you are more than welcome to go play the games yourself and/or get some of the yummy carnival food that will be served. An unlucky few will be going straight from their game station to the concession stand....I guess I'll have to ask people who REALLLLLLY love Zoey to help with that task. Me? Oh, I will be helping Miss Zoey play games and taking as many photos as possible.


Oh yeah, I don't know what the hell kinda freaky coincidence this is, but, as my girls know, Zoey's 1st birthday was a Wonder Pets themed affair. Well, the past two subsequent years I've started planning her birthday in January, last year it was a Wild West Outlaw party and the month before her party, Wonder Pets comes out with a wild west themed episode, "Save the Armadillo". Okay, THIS year, 2 months before her birthday Wonder Pets are doing a circus themed episode "Join the Circus"! How crazy is that? I love it cause she is still enamoured with the series and just like last year I'll show her the episode as many times as she cares to see it - to get her psyched for her own party.

Anyways, I need to keep my ass off this computer and get busy cleaning up our back yard! This party will be here before I know it and I have an amazingly long to do list!

BTW, want some free stuff? Check out both of my "Penny Pinch Plugs" blogs for links to free food, drinks, meals, magazine, Victoria's Secret bag and samples galore!

I am an AWARD WINNING party planner!!

So, I can officially declare myself as an award winning party planner! I submitted a narrative of the planning and party for Zoey's Outlaw 2nd birthday and I won 3rd place! (Albeit, they have several 2nd and 3rd place winners - I still freakin' won!) I should be receiving in the mail my $10 cash prize soon -- hey, $10 is better than nothing! I am excited! I was hoping for 1st but - oh freakin' well, I still won something! Here's the link to my party description over at Birthday Party Ideas . com. Below are some photos from my award winning party! =)

The Home-made invite, outisde/inside




Welcome to Deadwood! Watch out for Sheriff Lexi!




$15 Clearance Sheriff Station we found




Chuck Wagon Food Tables




General Store front I Made




Prospector's Plateau was the favorite activity of the day!




A close 2nd was the donkey rides




Outlaw Zoey at the Shootin' Range




Zoey's Cake




Cupcakes for everyone else!




By the end of the party she was an outlaw turned prospector! =)




Loot bags all the kiddos went home with.

My newest party planning endeavour is rapidly approaching time to execute. And OMG is this gonna be bigger than the last two parties COMBINED!! (IS that even possible?) The theme for Zoey's 3rd birthday is a Circus Carnival. I am having so much fun planning and collecting the supplies for it, but holy hell it is going to be one big undertaking! I am going to set up a midway full of carnival games including Ring Toss, Duck Pond, Whack-a-Mole Tower, Duck Shoot, Bowling, Ball Toss, Tattoos and many more! We are going to set up a "rides" area with Zoey's backyard toys (slide, playhouse, ride-on cars, swing) with her brand new trampoline she's getting as a gift. Our gazebo will serve as the concession stand where I'll (hopefully) have helpers to serve up the hot dogs, nachos, cotton candy, popcorn, tea and lemonade. My Step-Dad has learned how to make balloon animals and will serve as our clown for the day (he can also juggle!). I am going to set up my parent's Radio Flyer wagon and our matching wagon as Elephants and Lions "cages" to use as decor. The birthday cake will be cupcakes baked and served in ice cream cones! What else...oh yeah, I am also going to set up a photo studio area where the kids can dress up in a variety of circus costumes and have their photo taken and/or stand behind circus "standees" (you know, where a scene is painted and the faces are cut out for you to replace with yours?) and have their photo taken.

This is the rough draft of the invitation and the flyer I found to make the invite from.




One of my sketches of how the party should look once completed! Each booth will have a plastic table cloth in alternating red/yellow/blue behind it. We've got a shed (as big as a house) in our backyard that connects to the carport and then the neighbor's 6ft fence row which the Midway will be placed along.




What the cone cupcakes look like




The Duck Shoot game we found (retails on like for up to like $60! and we found it at an outlet store for $13! / Also, the carnival duckies I ordered for the duck pond booth.

My mom has been a HUGE help already with this party. Having around 15 Midway type game booths -- you need HELLA prizes. So she's been hitting up Goodwill and yard sales collecting new/like new stuffed animals for us to have at the booths. I am not sure what our current count is up to yet but we have about 10 trash bags FULL of stuffed animals. I really need to take a count of it all and figure out what other prizes I still need to get because Texas wont let Goodwill sell used toys anymore. We were getting huge bags full of stuffed animals for $1 each!! O-well, we should be pretty close to a full prize batch for all the games, *crossing my fingers*.

Anyways, I've got so much planned and so much to do before her April 25th birthday that I am sure you'll be hearing and seeing much much more about it in the coming weeks.

If you wanna see photos from the other parties I've planned you can friend request me at either MySpace or Facebook, just let me know who you are so I accept the request.

And for my contest chances: