Riley's Circus Party

Whoa, long time no blog...

Well I wanted to document Riley's 2nd birthday.  We had a circus party!  Mostly because a few months before I saw that the circus was coming to town on the weekend that I was planning her party.  The kids were able to get free tickets if they each read (or had read to them) 5 books each.  That was easy considering we go to the library every week anyway.  So making the decision to go to the circus was a no-brainer.  Not to mention the kids were stoked!  I have to say, so was I...the Dollar Tree did not disappoint!  They conveniently had a bunch of clown garb, popcorn bags and some oh so cute plastic red and white striped straws.  I used the popcorn bags for the goodie bags for our guests to take home.  They had Whoppers (Riley's fav), caramel cubes, clown noses, kazoos, and mini cotton candy.  I'm actually really proud of myself for coming up with the idea.  I definitely did not want cotton candy to be served.  But what's a circus without cotton candy?  I imagined all of the sticky fingers and my precious walls and couches being the obvious napkins for the kids...oh, who am I kidding, adults too!  Just kidding.  Maybe.

We did have hot dogs and corn dogs though!  I had a designated area in the kitchen for the kids to play and eat.  Man this house is small.  Surprising how fast it fills up! 

We had a few games planned, but only ended up playing pin the nose on the clown and feed the elephant.  What's feed the elephant?  It's this little game I came up with where the kids use a pool noodle as a trunk and a partner 'feeds' as many peanuts as they can within 'x' amount of time.  It didn't exactly go down the way I planned, but they had fun with it none the less.  Brian of course takes things to the guy level and he decided it would be much more exciting to use the trunk as a peanut launcher.  He was right.  It was cooler.  

I decided to forgo the traditional cupcakes with frosting and I made applesauce muffins, another of Riley's favs.  Not to mention, less messy!  For the recipe, CLICK HERE *the only changes I make are 1 1/4 cup of regular applesauce*  I use the Mott's Original.  I love those muffins... 

Thanks to everybody who brought her presents, but I just couldn't resist posting her pictures of her first heels.  She's so cute. 

After the party was over we headed to the circus.  It was awesome!  Too bad she probably won't remember it.  I don't care though.  I like seeing the kids living in the moment.  A little over the top for a 2 year old birthday party?  No way.  Take it from the ringmaster in the hot pants.