Julia's 2nd Birthday Party

I love a good party. We threw around a lot of different themes for Julia's birthday party before deciding on a circus theme. Julia had recently gotten into this short DVD that had come with her farm toy. One of the scenes is of a circus. Whenever the clown would show up at the circus, Julia would start laughing wildly and run to find Aaron and me, proclaiming, as if she'd made a very novel discovery about clowns, "The clown is funny!!! The clown is funny!!!!" Aaron started playing circus music from online, and she'd run around saying she was a clown in the circus. And, thus, our theme was born.

True to form, I bit off more than I could chew in the food/decorations department. I worked like a madwoman all day, but still served dinner quite late. But, everyone, especially the birthday girl, had a lot of fun, and that's what counts! Hooray for two years old! Hooray for Julia!

The other big news of the night was that Meghan started having regular contractions! The end of the pregnancy was drawing near - they ended up going to the hospital the next night (Sunday) and having Baby G Monday morning! Woo hoo!

Our faux "big top" in the living room.

Julia's new easel from Aaron's parents!

Aaron painstakingly covered Julia's tent with a red tablecloth and strips of white trash bag to make her a little circus tent. Cutest dad ever?

A circus animal birthday banner for our favorite two-year-old!

 

Continuing my tradition from last year, I made a banner of photos of Julia from each of the past 12 months.

The December photo was taken earlier in the afternoon.. haha!

The spread! I made circus themed food, including Julia's favorite - cheeseburgers and fries :-) Healthy, I know... haha!

Mini cheeseburgers

Mini corn dogs baked in a mini muffin tin.

Maybe not circus food...but it's colorful enough to be! My arteries were feeling clogged looking at the menu and I had to add something healthy to it!

I found these cute boxes at the party store.

As you can see, I also had lemonade and lots of condiments :-)

The birthday girl in one of the party hats I made!

Even the baby was celebrating! This night was the real start to her big debut! I think she was wanting to come out to join the party! :-)

Having fun with Grandpa and the circus tent.

A dollhouse from Grammie Terri and Grandpa Gary! They also gave her accessories for the house, including a van that plays music!

Julia would put on the ringleader hat and say, "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and gulls*, presen**... Julia's birthday!" *girls **presenting

Julia got dollhouse furniture, clothes, and a book from her aunts, uncle, and cousin :-)

"Will you help me open this, please?"

"Hurry! Open it, Trevor!"

Daddy reads the birthday card.

I don't think I've often realized how much Elizabeth favors my dad. I like this photo :-)

Haha! Trevor being a good sport for Sarah, as usual. This photo reminds me of Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty...haha!

Party people! I <3 my camera's timer function! :-)

Best photo of the night? (I think this photo captures why I was glad in some ways that I didn't have brothers growing up.)

Eh, nevermind. I had Sarah, which was maybe worse.

Julia was great at this!

Julia with her grandparents!

Julia loves dancing with Aunt Elizabeth! It's their thing.

Reaching for the ball!

The boys jumped through the ring of fire! I found this hula hoop that lights up inside! Like a circus ring of fire! Who ever said adults can't have fun at a two-year-old's birthday party?? ;-) Bahaha!

So, I decided to make circus tent cupcakes. I made cute pennants with toothpicks and cardstock, frosted the cupcakes white, and was going to add Fruit Roll-Up for the red stripes. Well, I decided to buy strawberry FruitaBü because it's gluten free (I'd made gluten free cupcakes for Elizabeth and wanted to decorate them the same way). The downside was that FruitaBü ended up looking almost more brown than red. The upside was the FruitaBü was 12093180 times better than Fruit Roll-ups. We were all mildly obsessed with FruitaBü, due to its awesome flavor and its awesome name.

Blowing out her candle!

So happy and proud!

We love our Julia!

I went to the effort of making homemade egg-free cupcakes... and Julia basically just licked the frosting.

 

Elizabeth, Meghan, and Erik stuck around to play our new game, Dixit: Journey (the St. Nicholas present Aaron and I had found on sale and given to ourselves...haha! Didn't quite fit in our shoes...), with us after Julia went to bed. We had a wonderful evening celebrating a special girl! It's amazing how much she'd grown since her last birthday party! How time flies!