For Caroline’s 4th birthday party we finally decided on a Carnival theme.  I was thankful for this because it meant I could reuse and improve on much of what I made for her 1st birthday party...also a Carnival Party.  Who doesn’t like going to the carnival.  Games, tickets, cotton candy, popcorn, hot dogs, and PRIZES!!!  So we set up the back yard with various games:  ring toss, beanbag toss, crash the cans, ball toss, duck pond, penny pitch, football and soccer score, putt-putt, and buried treasure.  All of the games were made out of things we already had around the house.  I also made a ticket booth out of a double oven box, and a giant popcorn box filled with yellow and white balloons for the popcorn!  As kids arrived they had lunch - hot dogs, popcorn and juice boxes, and then open play time.  To my surprise most of them spent their time on our jungle gym rather than playing the games!  I spent way too much time preparing the games for them not to be played, so I announced:  “Tickets!!!!  I have TICKETS!  Every time you play a game you earn one ticket...and later we’ll use your tickets to hunt for buried treasure!”  That did the trick.  The kids went crazy...running to play a game and then running to retrieve their ticket.  After some time spent on the games the kids lined up to hunt for prizes buried in our rock box.  This was a big hit!  Next we had cake and opened presents and finally the kids got to fish for their goodie bags.  I was surprised at how much fun they had with this one!  We taped a blue table cloth in the doorway and had David hiding on one side.  Then the kids lined up and took turns throwing the fishing line over to see what they could catch!  The whole party was a big hit and I was even able to reuse all the games two days later when we hosted play group!