Carnival Birthday Party. For my daughter Mary's 7th Birthday we threw a Carnival/Circus Birthday Party.  We anticipated that the events would have to be well planned and timed for the unexpected, especially since we were having boys come for the first time. Clown invitations were sent with the location being "Our last name" Fairgrounds and it was put on by "our last name" Carnies. We timed it for 2 1/2 hours after lunch so the kids came on full stomachs.  In each invitation was one ticket.  Prior to arrival we set up the kitchen table with the clown tablecloth, covering it with colored plastic party hats, foam stars, pompoms, colored pipe cleaners, felt, tape and lots of glue. We also set up a station for hair wraps, with 4 premade ones also, and a face painting station.  The kitchen was decorated with assorted color streamers and balloons.   Since we had 11 children, 6 girls and 5 boys, we asked a few close friends to come 15 minutes early so we could get a head start on the hairwraps and the facepainting.  I wrapped my daughter's hair before the party. I did the hairwraps, and another "carnie" did the facepainting. As the kids came in, they would be greeted by the birthday girl and would sit at the table to work on their silly hats. One by one, we would get their face painted. The hairwraps take 15 minutes each so I was able to get three girls done, including my daughter. One girl did not want her hair wrapped and I gave the other two girls clip-on wraps and told them I would do their hair after the carnival.  When I noticed a lot of the kids done with their hats, I brought out these balloons that they could blow up, stick on cardboard clown feet and stickers. (It was a craft I had bought just in case we needed extra.)  As they were finishing up, a clown showed up (Dad). He had the kids in hysterics as he pretended to look for the birthday girl. Then he pretended to shrink and out came a mini-clown (Our 5 year old son).  We had purchased matching clown costumes.  They juggled and laughed and made animal balloons.  After a few minutes they handed out foam clown masks, a big clown tie, big sun glasses, which the kids loved to put on. A big group picture, with their silly hats and clown masks on and the kids were ready for the carnival.  We led them downstairs, which had also been decorated with multi-color streamers and balloons.  They entered through a circus tent, where mini-clown handed out our leis and colorful paper bags, which had been decorated with cutout clowns and balloons (I wrote their name on them so the kids wouldn't mix them up), we put enough tickets in them for all the games and a few treats after. Mary had made all the signs for the games and listed how many tickets were needed for each.  We broke the kids up into three groups and they took turns playing the ducky game, basketball, skeeball, silly bowling, and mini-golf.  We had a carnie in charge of each group and the kids got a prize at each game.  They were given a couple chances on each game so as to stretch the time a little.  After all the games were done, the kids got to play anything they wanted, but for no prizes. I collected all the extra prizes in a bucket.  When they were getting restless, Dad handed out some more prizes.  Then we sat the kids down for the birthday girl to open her presents.  For a ticket each, the kids got individual baggied popcorn and cottoncandy. The kids loved handing in tickets, and this actually created some order in handing out treats.  While Mary opened her presents I wrapped one of the girl's hair as we watched.  We finished at the same time and it was piñata time.  The kids took turns at the clown piñata until all the candy came tumbling down.  They each were given party bags to put their candy in.    We then went back upstairs for the clown birthday cake and juice. We sang happy birthday, ate cake, and it was time to go. I finished the last girl's hairwrap as parents arrived to pick up their smiling-faced, hands-full of treats kids. And they left all talking about Mary's Daddy being a clown.   Prizes can be bought in bulk at Oriental Trading Company, including the ducky game, party hats, clown masks and tickets. Other prizes were assorted birthday party bag treats from local shops.