Raising Cain: Kylie Turns 5

Kylie turned five on May 8th and we were able to have a fun birthday for her that day. Unfortunately, when I planned it I forgot that my husband works on Fridays. I did ask a couple of moms to stay and help me out and my in-laws were also here for the fun time. They are always a huge help. Miki, the kind husband that he is, finagled his way out of work early, so he ended up being at the party for the last half and took pictures for me.

We had 10 kids come for our circus-themed party. Kylie had a hard time narrowing down what type of party she wanted and I was tired of princess parties so I helped her come up with the circus idea.

Here are Kylie and Sadie with the birthday cake. I found this cake design in a magazine and thought it would be so cute and easy to make. I was right. Those are mini M&Ms, regular M&Ms and peanut butter M&Ms.

We had fun circus-themed games. Pin the Nose on the Clown.

Bean bag toss/toss the clown nose onto the clown.

This was a cute game that I found online. You have one child stand on a rope and everyone sings, "one elephant went out to play on a tight rope string one day. He/she had such enormous fun that he/she called for another elephant to come." Then the child grabs a friend to join them on the rope. You continue the song until all of the kids are on the rope. It was cute to see them all wiggling and wobbling to try and stay on the crowded rope at the end. You finish the song with, "11 elephants went out to play on a tight rope string one day. They had such enormous fun, but the tight rope broke and they all fell down." Then all of the kids fall to the ground.

Tigers jumping through the hoops of fire. I don't know why I only had them go through once. They really enjoyed this and thinking back now, I should have had them jump through over and over and over again.

Kylie tight-rope walking. I didn't think that we would have enough time for all of the kids to do this, so only Kylie got to do it. We ended up with a bunch of time at the end and this is another game that I wish that I had let them do over and over again.

I pulled out all of our circus Little People toys and set them up for the kids to look at for a short time. Then I secretly took one of the toys off and then had them guess which one was gone. We did this until all of the circus toys where taken off. Paige Nelson rocked this game!

We tried to see if we could fit all of the clowns into the Fun House. It worked, but when they all came tumbling out, I think the kids that ended up in the back were a little unsure of why we did this. The looks were priceless. Sorry McKenzie, Kyla and Ezra!

Pinata time. Kylie was so excited to have her own pinata and picked out this princess one. This type of pinata is great for my non-bat swinging girl because you just pull a string and the lucky string opens up the trap door hiding all of the candy. Unfortunately for us, string #2 was the lucky one and no one really got a chance to play. I have also sworn off ever having a pinata at a birthday party ever again. Two of the kids ended up in tears because there just wasn't any room for everyone to get their little hands in there and grab the candy. Four people ended up with empty bags and we had to go around and take candy from some kids to make sure everyone had some. What a terrible idea to have little preschool age kids fight over who can get candy first.

Gift time. When it was a child's turn to take their gift to Kylie, they picked a paper out of a clown hat. This paper told them how to present the gift to her. For example, "slither like a snake" or "hop like a kangaroo." Then they got to sit in a chair right next to Kylie as she opened their present. This made it nice for Kylie to be able to thank and hug the present giver and they were a part of the gift-opening process too.

Thanks to Kristen and Brooke for helping me out. And thanks to all of Kylie and Sadie's friends. We will miss all of you and had such a good time at our circus party with you!