Backyard Carnival. We celebrated two of our girls party together. Turning 6 and 4. This was a lot of work..but well worth it.  Invitations: We cut out colorful stock paper in the shape of balloons and tied a sting to it and wrote the information. We hand delivered these if possible. Preperation: It took a bulk of the summer and we had a lot of help. The girls helped as did several neighborhood girls. (They were middle school aged.)  Each of them came over to help paint a booth that they would run at the party. They were excited to be a part of it. (to thank them...I gave them movie tickets) First we got 4 large boxes from a local appliance store. 1. The first refrigerator box we kept mostly in tact. Just cutting out a rectangle to resemble a ticket booth. We painted it blue and drew colorful balloons all over it. In a little pocket we put markers and as children arrived my daughter handed out tickets, gave them a lei to put on and from the booth welcomed her guests and had them sign the booth. As the party went on a lot of kids enjoyed pretending to be the ticket booth person. We put this at the top of the driveway. The children then went to a table where they decorated plain white bags and put their names on them. They would need these to collect their prizes throughout the party. (this was their goody bag) 2. Another large box we cut down to resemble a carnival booth and painted it lots of fun colors. This was for the Duck Pond.  Just a small plastic pool with plastic ducks and dollar signs painted on the bottom $  $$  $$$. They got to pick a prize from the corresponding prize bucket. ( We got all our prizes from a bulk magazine). 3. We had a penny toss. Just took our train table and covered it with colored circles. You had to get a penny inside the circle to win a prize. (once again fun little prizes like erasers) 4. We took an old large planting pot and painted it pink. We made a giant lollipop out of styrofoam and had that planted in the pot. All around the large lollipop were real dumdum pops sticking into the styrofoam. The kids were allowed to pull them out. If they were colored at the end they got a prize. Either way they got to keep the lollipop. 5. We had another booth painted again. That was to get your picture taken. We bought a large piece of pressed posterboard and my mom painted a picture to resemble a person putting their head in the lions mouth. The booth worker took a polaroid for the person to take home. 6. We had face paining   7. A bounce house 8. A dunk tank which we had plenty of volunteers for. 8. Another booth decorated as a bean bag toss. Once again fun little prizes in plastic containers. 9.For the little tykes we had an area of the lawn that we put out playhut tents and tunnels, small plastic slides, and young toys. This was helpful for the parents and was good down time. That was most of the entertainment. We did however have two pinatas...one for each girl. I put the same candy in baggies so when the pinata opened each child got one. No chaos that way. Now for additional decrations: We lined the driveway with pinwheels and used side walk chalk to write...5 feet until popcorn....3 feet until games and fun...etc...We also bought plastic flags to hang from the trees. I rented a balloon tank and blew up 100 plus ballons to place throughout the backyard. FOOD: I did let our friends bring some sides. we had over 100 people attend..so that was helpful. We rented a hotdog steamer, popcorn popper and snowcone machine to keep the theme in tact.  I paid some of the girls babysitter (college aged) to run the food. We had a hot dog topping bar and table set up with lots of chips, twizlers and fun food. Bins of juice boxes and waters. For a cake the girls each had small individual cakes and we did cupcakes for ease. We had a adult beverages as well...to keep the party going. We did rent several tables and chairs to provide seating for people when they chose to eat lunch. We did not open presents as there were too many children. I also asked that people limit their gift giving to books or art supplies. As our guest left we gave them each a Carnival Color Book that we had put together from online. They had pictures related to the party as well as the numbers the girls were turning to color. They also got a pack of crayons with this. It was a big success and the girls had a wonderful time. Happy party planning!