Circus Birthday Party!

Since we bought our house in 2012, I've been planning a Circus Birthday for L. We have nice, big vaulted ceilings in the livingroom and I had a dream of turning it into a big top! 

It took 7 hours start to finish to put the big top up. We cut table cloth, hand sewed it onto a hula-hoop, hung it around our ceiling fan and stuck it to the walls. It was the most amazing thing I've ever done! The kids were amazed when they walked in for the party.

I also printed labels for water bottles and made signs for the cotton candy, snow cone and popcorn machines. L wanted 2 different kids of cupcakes instead of a cake this year(which was fine by me!)

We couldn't have had this party without the help of our friends. Tons of our friends came to run booths for us. First up was the concession stand(popcorn, cotton candy and snow cones), a tattoo booth(where each kid got finger mustache tattoos), balloon animals, face painting and a photo booth. 

The sweets were a hit! I loved the balloon animals and the photo booth. So much fun! 

Some photo booth photos! We had tons of fun props for the kids to play around with!

While I was getting lunch ready(hot dogs and corn dogs), The kids all headed down to the basement to play games! Once again our friends came in and ran the games for us!

We had a can toss(many chicken broth cans were saved for months!), a bean bag toss, ring toss, lucky duck pool and pin the nose on L(I took a picture of L in his ring master shirt and blew it up, cut red circles and had the kids stick them to his face. It was a hit!). 

After games, the kids came up to eat and got to go into the prize tent(we moved the concession stand and I put out all of the prizes they could choose from)

Then we did cupcakes! 

The most amazing part of the party was being in our first 'real' home, surrounded by amazing friends, making memories. 

During presents, the kids got in a tissue paper fight. It was so neat to look at these pictures after and see the pure joy on L's face. He is such a happy kid and I'm so happy he had such a great time. Many times during the party he would stop and thank me for putting so much time into the party.

Shore Duty

We are now a year into shore duty. I'm not going to lie, the beginning was hard. I had been married for years but wasn't great at living with someone. I was so used to doing everything on my own that everything was always done my way. If J was 'home' he had duty every third day and didn't get home until 6-8 at night.

But we have found a balance. We've learned to work together and now are working on making our home OURS. Projects are being done and for the first time we are buying things for this house, not things we think could fit in 3 houses down the road when we move. It's different and so amazing.

I have so many things to post about and every time I think I'm going to make time to truly blog again, I fail. I've missed it and maybe now with my office about done, I will have a place to sit and do it.