A few summers ago Brent plunged into icy water for a fundraiser…a polar-bearing event, per say.  The kids were thrilled about the whole concept.  So, much so that a few years later Jake insisted on having a pool party for his December birthday.  We normally have smaller celebrations for the kids’ birthdays, but every once in a while, it’s fun to do a big bash.  We went all out with Jake’s icy theme.  Except when it came to the pool.  It was so warm that even though it rained during the party, the pool was packed with swimmers!

I loved the details of Jake’s party, so I wanted to share that part with you first.  I also did a photo booth and took a lot of pictures of the kids having fun, so that will come in the next post.

I bought some 36″ balloons and put some of my ribbon scraps to use.  I made the mistake of renting a helium tank to save a little money.  Trying to tie these guys off has left my fingers about 2 inches shorter than they used to be.  Best to leave that job to the experts.

Okay…so another fun part was the food.  Here’s the table display:

The pendants were from previous photo shoots, so it was nice that they matched with the theme.

I tried to go ‘homemade’ as much as possible, with the exception of these SNOWBALLS from Cost Plus World Market.  They’re basically white cheeto puffs.  Yum.

So a few notes about the food:  I made hot dogs and my ‘team’ of helpful family wrapped them all in parchment paper and blue bakers twine.  We served them with homemade chili and all the fixings.  There were snowball shaped pb&j sammies for the kids.  (cut with my round biscuit cutters)  Of course the cheese puff snowballs and homemade popcorn added to the white theme.  I made Amy Sedaris’ vanilla cupcakes with my own cream cheese frosting.  I love minis…they look so cute with toppers.  The toppers are Martha Stewart snowflake punches hot-glued to toothpicks.  Instead of the traditional rice krispy treats, I let the ‘batter’ cool and little the scooped it into balls for my mini paper cups.  I added a few other white sides like vanilla marshmallows and yogurt pretzels.

The snowmen were made by the kids (with our help) and given as favors at the end of the party.  I found the idea on pinterest.  You basically skewer marshmallows, then paint them with karo syrup then roll into sparkling sugar.  Mini oreos and rolos make the hat, then we piped the rest of the details with frosting.

I’m in love with the vintage style sodas, so we had a big variety of those…along with waters.  And I love the paper straws from Garnish! (that’s also where the paper snow cone cups are from)

I set up a snow globe table for the kids that were finished swimming.  Another pinterest idea.  It was a huge hit!