The Lucas Lowdown: The Greatest Party On Earth: Molly turns 4!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, presenting Molly's FOURTH birthday circus bash! Immediately after her Mother Goose soiree last year, Molly was leaning toward a Blue's Clues party for #4. (She plans these things in advance. Year 5 and 6 themes are already spoken for.) About a quarter into the year, though, I pointed out that she hadn't even watched Blue's Clues for quite awhile. After my 1st-4th grade show in March, The Prodigal Clown (a retelling of the parable of the prodigal son set under the big top) , she declared she would have a circus party when she turned four and she never looked back.

We decided, yet again, to do a family only party because when we start making out lists with family AND friends (school, church, life-friends--the kind that you share your lizard face, file folders, and ugly cry with--you know who you are and you're laughing right now...-- plus parents....whew!) it quickly gets out of hand. Plus, most of our family is from out of town so parties are a fun way to spend time together but if we invited friends all my time and energy would be spent on making them feel welcome and not being with the family who's traveled to come hang out. Including my two there are 8 cousins (that are close enough to come--3 more live a little too far) so our family parties do not lack children for sure! Don't know why I just went into all that...I always feel guilty that we're not including ALL the special people in our lives but then it always feels great and intimate when it's family. I digress.

Even though it's *just* family I still love a good invitation. These were especially fun to do. Molly was in a super mood when I shot the pictures and they came out wonderfully and with a little photo editing they were circus perfection (I took pics in front of a white sheet and then added the striping and text):

The FABULOUS ringmaster costume she's wearing came from none other than the Classy Flea for a whopping $4. When MiMi and Pop were here for Jack's birthday we found it hanging on a rack and MiMi scooped it up after I mentioned it looked just like a ringmaster. It's really an old dance costume with a great hat and detached sleeves with rhinestone cuff links. It is, in a word, PERFECT! That outfit is how I knew I wanted to do an invite with her picture on it.

We took the pictures for the invitation while Jack was napping and then I had the idea of putting him in his lion hat and making him the lion--so cute. But alas, that would've taken a whole other just-the-right-mood session (for ALL of us) and that just didn't happen. (Just sub the stuffed lion for an adorable baby boy lion in your head.)

I did a google image search for "circus ticket birthday invite" and found a LOT of pictures of circus invitations. I took the one below and edited it to include Molly's information. (I then reblurred the address part so I could include it on here).:

After August with all it's starting school costs, registration fees, tuition and childcare costs, and family birthdays (we have 5!) the budget for Molly's party is (literally) $0. So the only thing we put money into was the food. If you know me you'll easily believe that everything else was preowned and either taken from my personal stash of odds and ends or borrowed from my school-stored personal stash (remember, it was just March that I did a show with a circus theme--happy coincidence!) Luckily, we picked up all the concession stand goodies at the beginning of the summer. So I just dug them out of hiding and set them up for favors.

Ryan took all the pictures at the party (which is great or we'd have zero pics) so you can't see the top of the "concession stand" my favorite part;)

It's just this canopy that normally lives in our playroom:

By the way...MiMi and Pop are master party setter-uppers/taker-downers. I mean, for real. You'd think they'd have learned by now to stop coming to our parties cause they will be put to work. Grandma and Granddaddy weren't going to be able to come but surprised us at the last minute and made it both to Marci's party that morning and Molly's party that night. It was a grand surprise. Kara and the boys also were able to make it which was also great fun.

MiMi and I set up the concession stand after Molly went to bed Friday night and it was a fun thing for her to wake up to! The display of open cotton candy and red/white popcorn bags are just props left over from my show in March. I think it was Wyatt that took a taste of the prop cotton candy and found it tasted rather like, well, cotton...without the candy--blech! Karma made the cotton candy for me back in March for my circus show by tinting polyfil stuffing with liquid food coloring diluted in water and gluing the puffs to paper cones. The popcorn was made (by Mom, Karma, and me back in March) by stuffing the striped bags with plastic grocery bags and hot gluing real popcorn to a coffee filter to tuck on top. Then I sprayed the tops with a clear coat to keep it from attracting pests. Both of those displays had seen better days but they still were fun to look at. I used them as the backdrop for the real stuff. Everyone got to visit the concession stand before they left to collect their party favors: a bucket of cotton candy, a super cute blue and white striped bag (with vintage circus pictures) of kettle corn (from Trader Joe's) and of course, a circus train car of Barnum's animal crackers.

We brought down the clown that hangs in Jack's room and Molly's ceramic elephant bank to keep track of gifts. Look at the cute one with a circus tent on it!

Does this look at all familiar?

You may remember it from it's former life as Jack's "Happy Birthday" sign:

Confession: We never took the sign down. Yes, Jack's birthday was in June. Yes, it's September. (Well, technically the last day of August was the day of the party;) Ryan suggested I just rework it to make it relevant for Molly's party. I accepted the challenge. I colored over the existing orange flags and flourishes with red and pink, turned the No. 1 into No. 4 and made the vertical ONE into a big, fat, pink exclamation point. I left the dapper gentleman and added a red clown nose and daisy in his hat and gave him some pink in his accessories. I used another piece of paper to write "Molly" on and taped it on the existing "Jack". And we added a little balloon bouquet. Voila! Have we taken it down yet? Nope. Will we? Um...maybe. OR... maybe I'll rework it into a Halloween banner?! Thanksgiving? Christmas? Heck, this thing may be around forever.

*Update*: both the banner and the balloon tent (below) have been removed in preparation for fall decor. Your mind can be at ease;)

I envisioned a couple of cutout figures for photo ops for the kids. I didn't get around to making them until the day of, after we got home from my niece's 9th birthday party (her birthday's 8/29). I did a google image search for circus clip art and found this whole set of circus figures and big top craft. I printed them out for a craft activity...:

They really acted more as coloring pages though because I forgot to lay out scissors and directions. But they were fun nonetheless.

I used the tightrope walker and the lion for my cutouts. I used an overhead projector to quickly trace them onto brown butcher paper and colored them with pastels (my go-to medium for fast, mistakes-don't-matter drawing and coloring). They were made and hung in less than an hour. It took longer to rig them up than it did to trace and color them (since they were only paper and not rigid)!

One of these things is not like the others:)

They made for some cute photo ops, great decor for the family room and a festive backdrop for our 3-ring show later in the evening.

You can see the Amelie soundtrack picture bobbing around on the tv screen. Ryan chose this to evoke the open-air French circus feel without being super annoying after awhile like this.

The next bit of decorating took place in the dining room. Sweet Pop blew up something like...48 balloons with only his own hot air (I mean that in the nicest way possible--don't read into it:)! Then at my direction, he and Ryan threaded them onto lengths of ribbon and hung them from the chandelier to the corners and edges of the ceiling to create our BIG TOP. It made a major impact, really looked like a tent, and was lots of fun to eat under! Side note: they may or may not still be suspended from the ceiling in the dining room. The circus has not left town. Yet.

Under the balloon tent I used Molly's toy drum, her stuffed lion, a couple of giraffe and zebra boxes, and some M-O-L-L-Y letters (that magically showed up in Molly's school bag one day--if you're the one that gave them to us would you let me know? Thanks!) to make a circus parade on the dumpster-rescued tablecloth. (No joke. The fabric I used for the tablecloth was found in a roll of several yards in the dumpster and rescued by a fellow teacher. Only the classiest for my family!) I was planning to use the rest of the "dumpster" cloth to make a tent on the wall but ran out of time.

The table circus parade

I used some little frames for place cards because they were whimsical and colorful.

The blue border was some painted foam board from "The Prodigal Clown" that MiMi and I wedged above the board and batten in the dining room. It all turned out rather festive for just the cost of a few packs of balloons!

The chalkboard walls in the kitchen are so fun when it comes to decorating for events and seasons. This portion beside the oven always gets dressed up for the occasion.

I get a lot of questions on how I get my chalk to look sharp. The trick? Dip it in water. A trick I learned by accident via sidewalk chalk and garden hose while babysitting one summer. It uses up your chalk a lot faster and you have to use water to fully erase, but it looks nice and dark! As for lettering, I do a google image search for different fonts and then eyeball as I write with iPad in one hand and chalk in the other. (Did the same thing for the brown butcher paper birthday banner.)

For the menu we did burgers and dogs on the grill (it started pouring the second Ryan got them off--perfect timing) with potato casserole and marinated salad on the side. Oh, and some silly looking vegetables:

It all felt rather similar to this...even the table cloths were the same:).

Sadly, I don't have a picture of the table all set up but I have some slightly before it was all set up.

I used a drum to use as a centerpiece and a pedestal for Molly's birthday cake. Speaking of cake, there wasn't going to be one. Instead I'd decided to just do popcorn & peanuts in the form of cupcakes and little peanut butter pies.

Oh, and seal cupcakes left over from Molly's preschool class celebration. But then on the same site I found the cute seal printable cupcake toppers (I googled "printable circus cupcake toppers") I also found the cutest circus cake printables. Once MiMi agreed to make the cake that was that and the cake ended up being my FAVORITE as far as cute factor goes...and taste. It was red velvet and I must tell you that my mother-in-law's red velvet cake was one of the ways I knew I was supposed to marry Ryan. I'd never, ever come across someone who did red velvet cake like my mom until Sandra:). Fun factoid for ya.

After we added the blue and red gumballs around the edge and the adorable printable cake toppers it was absolutely darling, IMHO. The cake shown with the printables had the girl hanging from two large blue and white paper straws which I did not have. What I did have, however, was oversized birthday candles (that I got at Big Lots about 10 years ago. Seriously.) so I tied the "tightrope" to those and they acted as two of the four candles. Bonus: her act looked super dangerous with the addition of the flaming tightrope! The seal is balancing a Dum Dum on his nose. I came up with that idea as soon as I saw the ball-less seal but then later I saw that they did the same thing on the site I got these from. Great minds think alike. The whole thing looked smart atop a tall blue drum borrowed from my prop room.

Here's our circus crew:

Silly Sophi

The BIG Fours!

A half asleep cat and no-eye-contact birthday girl (the face paint was left over from Marci's baby animal party that morning. I did lots of faces and part of the cat and a bit of a giraffe survived the day:)

Add a Jack, wide-eyed kitty, and one sad clown. Lol:)

A menagerie of masks...and Jack.

All no-playing-with-toys-at-the-dinner-table rules are waived on your birthday

Yay food!

Serious conversation. My favorite part? Jonah's backward strong man tank top;)

Obvious hilarity ensuing

Yummy burgers, surprise grandparents, and being the center of attention--what more could you want?

The entertainment was perhaps my favorite portion of the evening. I mentioned to Molly's cousins that they were welcome to bring/do a circus act of their choice if they wanted. Well, everyone DID take part and at the appropriate time we all gathered in the three-ring area to watch the circus unfold. There was no collaboration ahead of time, no adult direction, no rehearsal of any kind and yet these kids put on a 20 minute show that had a beginning, middle, and end and totally flowed. It was kind of amazing and reminded me of all the theatrics shared with my sisters--we may or may not have put on some shows of our own a time or two.

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls presenting..."

Molly was the ringmaster and she emceed the evening. Before each act she'd (not so) gracefully climb on the stepstool (picture a cutie patootie tutu-clad bootie in your face every time;) and announce "ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, presenting...Marci and her amazing Sadie (or whatever the act happened to be). I was taking video footage rather than pictures during the show so there's minimum coverage of the event in stills. I hate we missed documenting the dog trainer and tricks (Marci and MiMi and Pop's little dog, Sadie), the tightrope walkers (Wyatt and Maggi), the stilt-walking clown Sophi and all her hilarious antics, and our incredible strongman (Jonah). Perhaps I'll post a video--it's pretty epic.

Marci, the everlasting hula-hooper!

Molly also tried her hand at magician's assistant. Sammy, I mean "The Great Scardino", prepared an 11 minute magic show and it sounded scripted. He included the birthday girl and slipped in the number 4 a few times to personalize it for her big day. She still talks about his magic wand that broke when she touched it. I believe he's open for other bookings. Just contact his agent.