A Carnival of fun... Little Boy Blue is 1!!!

Have you heard of the phenomenon where some families have all of their children at the same time of the year? I didn't think much about it until it happened to us. Miss Belle was born three weeks before Miss Bloom's second birthday and Little Boy Blue was born three weeks before Miss Belle's third birthday. Poor planning on my part. Between May and July we have all three kids' birthdays, Mothers Day and Fathers Day and our wedding anniversary is the day before Miss Belle's birthday (10 years! Wow!). So it's a busy time of year. This year we kicked off birthday season a few days early so that my grandparents could help us celebrate Little Boy Blue's 1st birthday. A carnival party for my sweet little guy.

Of course, I wanted to make a fun outfit for each of the kids.

Miss Bloom was the horseback rider in red nylon confetti dot shorts and a tank top. I also gave her a matching feather headband to complete the look.

Miss Belle was our trapeze artist. She also wanted sparkles. So I made her dress using the same confetti dot fabric (pink is her signature color) with a tube top and a circle skirt. For extra flounce, I added eight circles of tulle under her skirt.

And the birthday boy was our carnival barker. Bowties on little boys are pretty fabulous, so I made him a suspenders and bowtie onesie. He can pull it off. His adorable newsboy cap was made by the very talented Heather at One Classy Stitch.

My favorite party decoration was a banner featuring pictures of my baby throughout the last year.

Isn't he cute?

For fun we played ring toss.

And my brother taught himself how to make balloon animals. Unfortunately, they didn't last long in the midwestern heat and humidity.

We fed our guests typical carnival food: hot dogs, peanuts, popcorn, and sweets.

My lovely sister lent her artistic skills for our face painting table.

And my parents stuffed a pinata full of candy and other goodies for the kids. How lucky are we to have such wonderful family here to help?!?

Little boy took the first hit, with a little help from Mommy.

And then the other kids whacked, and whacked, and whacked, and whacked it...

Until that poor donkey busted open. Little Miss H has quite an arm!

And all of the children swarmed!

My husband and I also built a photo booth for fun party pictures.

Finally, it was time for Little Boy to try his cake.

More cake!

And cupcakes...

He decided to try a chocolate cupcake too. Can you blame him?

Our carnival was a lot of fun...

But really exhausting!

It's a good thing we have three and a half weeks left to rest up before the next birthday!