Sage's 5th Birthday | Mary Poppins Backyard Fair Party
Our fourth girl, Sage, turned 5 this month. She definitely has a knack for all things artistic and creative, which showed last year when she came up with her party theme all on her own. I was curious to hear what she’d come up with for her 5th since last year’s was such a good one. When she kept saying she wanted a “goldfish party” this year I was kinda stumped on how to pull that off! (Like... I wasn’t going to let real goldfish come back into our house again--let's just say we’re not a pet family!)
As I tried to figure out how to come up with something, the whole goldfish thing made me think of those games that are played at the fair throwing a ball into the bowl to win the fish to take home. So I asked her “what about having a backyard fair party and we can play a goldfish game?” and she excitedly said yes. (whew! Now we had some direction to go in).
It was soon after that we were watching Mary Poppins Returns and the Spring fair scene at the end of the movie instantly gave me all the inspiration to pull off this party idea. The girls were so excited at the idea and to join in on making all the decorations for their sister’s party. Something I love that’s come out of doing these parties for my kiddos is how much they love to make it fun for each other too. They get so into celebrating their sibling which is the best part of making this all happen.
So we got to working on creating some table decor. The ferris wheel and carousel (merry-go-round) were all made with stuff I already had at home-- cardboard, popsicle sticks, and paint. Maybe a DIY on how I made these will come to the blog soon, but I kind of went off of this idea for the carousel and used the Mary Poppins Jolly Holiday Carousel for inspiration. The girls helped cut out pieces and paint the sticks and I illustrated the horses for the carousel and ferris wheel seats to glue on too.
I made this board on Pinterest to get all the ideas on how to make booths and play games, but stuck with the feel/look of what I had in mind from Mary Poppins. Shane and I made the structure for the game booths out of scrap wood we had in our yard with just three pieces of wood screwed together and then zip tied to the front of tables we already had. Then I drew out the “tent” top of the booth on a foam board, cut it out and stapled it to the wood. I found this pink and white striped tablecloth on Amazon and stapled and draped it around the wood.
Once the booths were done we used old bottles to spray paint for the ring toss game and dollar store glass bowls for our goldfish toss game. Balloon pop and pin the tail on the horse were also played and we had some good laughs over those too.
The best added touch to it all was surprising Sage with this adorable Cotton Candy Cart that joined our backyard fun. And I must say it’s probably the best cotton candy I’ve ever tasted! All made from organic sugar and the perfect fluffy, lightness to dissolve in your mouth making you go back for more and more (I know my kids did--like 3 or 4 times!). You can follow them here to book your next event with them--I highly recommend! Their cute cart just adds so much fun, don't you agree?!
My favorite tradition of all is making the cake with the birthday girl. Sage and I decorated her “carousel” cake together and it was devoured within minutes of blowing out those candles.
I love getting to celebrate my kids in fun ways like this and I think this year it has shown even more on how much they love it too. As we were all putting it together one of my twins said to me “you’re working so hard mama, will you do this for my wedding too?” and that made me smile big. I sure hope they let me help with their weddings someday (because of course I’m already dreaming about it!)
(and a little bts on what its like taking a group picture with this crew!)
In case you’re inspired to use these ideas for your next party I created a fun gift for you. Click here to download the horse and ferris wheel seat illustrations to cut out and use! Please tag and share them with me if you decide to use them, I’d love to see!
Here are links to some of the things I used too:
Pink and White striped tablecloth | Pink scalloped paper cups |White popcorn boxes | Pastel Balloons | Flowers from the local grocery store and flag banners we made out of poster board taped to jute string.