A Swim Party

We have a community pool nearby that's pretty fun and the boys have wanted to have a birthday party there for years.  But with varying levels of swimming skills I haven't felt comfortable with the idea until now.  Most 9 year olds are pretty good at swimming and hey, there's a lifeguard and life jackets for the rest.  

So that was the party plan and when I showed Ethan a few "pool party" cakes on Pinterest, he noticed one with a slide and fell in love with it.  And even though I protested that I didn't think I could do it he assured me that I definitely could and that that's the ONLY one he liked.  So I went on the hunt for something to make into a slide and lucked upon a hot wheels track piece that was just about perfect- it could have used a little more natural support but we made do.  And here's the end result.

I actually think it turned out pretty well- mini people and all.

Just a sheet cake covered and decorated with fondant- super easy, and a hot wheels wall piece covered in fondant and people and propped up with skewers and icing cans.  And candles to complete the whole birthday effect.

The pool has a little party room you can rent pretty cheap and then it's just $2 a kid.

I grabbed pizza and gatorade knowing the kids would be starving.

And really it was an easy party because all the big boys just wanted to be swimming and going down the slide.  That's skinny Ethan waiting in line to go...

...down the really intense slide.  Not the most amazing slide ever but pretty great for a community pool in Utah.  Especially on a very rainy, cold day in April.

That's Ethan coming out of the slide.  I'm kind of impressed I caught that shot.

And then when all your friends have gotten down the slide it's time to ride the lazy river around to wait in line again.

Everyone happy.  Everyone entertained.  Everyone watched by a life guard.  Perfect.

And all the siblings thought it was a fabulous party too.  Isla randomly found 2 of her friends from nursery also trying to escape the cold and rainy weather.

And Taylor was nice enough to hang out and watch all the kids in the pool while I got the food ready.

So much fun!  You can barely see it in the picture but this pool has water shooting up and dumping down all over the place.

After an hour we dragged everyone out for cake and foo.

Had to include the only shot of me- I really was there.

This birthday boy looks pretty pleased with his day so far.

And this pretty princess thinks the cake is SO good that it's worth using her entire fist.  Or maybe she's just starving from all the swimming.

And since this is a 9 year old boy's party there had to be some silliness.  Keep working on those muscles boys.

Isaac does not like frosting and so refused a piece of cake but he did eat almost half a pizza and a lot of tye-dye ice cream.

Miles is Isaac's opposite in all that.  He ate only breadsticks and is OBSESSED with fondant.  Really.  He ate the fondant off his piece and then didn't want the cake but asked if he could eat the people off the slide.  And then once that wasn't satisfying enough he wanted to know if he could eat the slide too.

Yep.  He's literally pulling chunks of fondant off the slide and eating it all.  Gross!  But at least now I have a shot of what the slide looked like before.

There were presents.

And there were aunts and uncles and a cousin and Grams.  And then they were begging to go swim some more.  A perfect party.