Here we go with PART 3 of my daughter Macy’s “First Birthday Parade”!

I realize this last part of the recap is quite spread out from PART 1 and PART 2, but with the way things have been this year, at this point I’m actually just happy to get this up before she turns TWO! Especially since she will have a brand new little sibling to attend the party by the time the next birthday arrives. 😊

Circus Birthday Printables

My Circus Parade printables are available in two colorways: Pink and Blue! Use them to add instant style and personalized details to your party. 🙌 You can edit the custom text yourself – right on the website – whenever (and as often as) you need to! Click here to buy this collection.

Read on for a recap of the parade + circus-inspired dessert table, rainbow smash cake, food, drinks, activities, and indoor decorations…

The Dessert Table

My original vision for this table was to turn the dessert table into an entire street parade scene, complete with a “street” looking tablecloth (with the yellow dividers), a balloon backdrop, and marching animals holding treats. I got as far as renting a charcoal gray cloth for the table and made a few “buildings” for the backdrop, but wasn’t able to go all out with the “street parade table” like the vision I’d worked up in my head.

The clock was tick tick ticking away and I ran out of time…my imagination and Father Time just cannot ever seem to get on the same page! BUT, I’m still happy with it and am fully aware that Macy didn’t know the difference of course. It’s more about the fact that I thought it would be SO FUN to go all out with that vision. Next time… 😉

The treats were simple and colorful: animal cookies, candy dots that we stapled into bracelets around the kids’ wrists, Pixi sticks, meringue drop cookies, and homemade cupcakes.

The “buildings” that we did make were constructed from old shoe boxes wrapped in solid gift wrap from Target.

I found a photograph of a window frame from istockphoto.com and printed out a bunch of blank windows to glue to the “buildings”. I also printed a few more window frames out with images of Macy inserted into them so that it would look like she was “peeking out” from some of the building windows.

A “MACY’S” banner was added to one of the larger buildings to play on the store name… and the connection with the birthday party theme and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

We made the cupcakes ourselves, using store bought mixes and Wilton’s concentrated gel Icing Colors to get the frosting nice and bright! Wondering about that cool silver cupcake tower? Another great Costco find!

I designed some themed toppers for the cupcakes, and we used the paper patterns that were incorporated throughout the party to make coordinating “cupcake wrappers”, which were wrapped around the standard white wrappers to dress them up.

Birthday Parade Banners

I designed some individual letters to spell out “MACY’S BIRTHDAY PARADE” above the dessert table and across the fireplace mantle. For the dessert table, I strung each word across its own ribbon (2 holes punched in each letter). For the fireplace mantle, the letters were each hung individually (one hole was punched at the top for the ribbon to slide through so they’d lay flat).

Here’s how the fireplace turned out:

You can find my Circus Birthday Parade Printables in pink or blue! (BTW – This collection got a big makeover/revamp in 2019! 😊)

Party Activities

This party was a mix of both kids and adults. We had bubbles, glittered plastic sunglasses, mustache stickers, and face painting for the kids  ($80 for 1.5 hours of face painting and the kids were seriously ECSTATIC about it… that was fun to watch!).

We also had Carnival photo props on sticks by Paper and Cake for both the kids AND the adults to enjoy!

Each kid took a custom-wrapped bottle of bubbles home with them as part of their party favor.

Food & Drinks

The food & drinks were simple and “parade friendly”. We had hot dogs, kettle chips, individual servings of potato salad (pre-set with colorful forks!), my mother in law’s FAMOUS Cabbage Salad (with crunchy Ramen noodles and sesame-peanut dressing 😋), and fruit salad.

Water bottles and juice boxes were dressed up with printable bottle wraps for the kids.

Adults enjoyed colorful bottles of IZZE natural sodas, regular sodas, beer, and Petite Petit Wine by Michael David Winery, which not only tastes great, but has an adorable elephant/circus themed label that coordinated way too perfectly with the theme!

Smash Cake

We used a small 6″ cake pan to make the smash cake, colored the batter in various colors to make it RAINBOW style, and kept the icing white to really make the batter colors pop once you cut into the cake. I love how it turned out… Macy was a little timid with it at first… but that changed pretty quickly once she got a taste!

Wanna see more from this fun birthday parade? Check out party recaps Part 1 and Part 2! 🥳