Birthday Winter Wonderland

 

 

Carson and his bff James celebrated their 7th birthdays by having a snow party together. (Their birthdays are four days apart)

 

I'm not sure my neighbors knew what they were getting themselves into when they agreed to plan this event with me, but the party turned out amazing, with just a couple of glitches in the planning phase...

 

We initially thought for the invitations to attach the cards to plastic snow globes, but after searching every store we came up empty.  Thanks to pinterest and the fact that their birthdays fall so close to Christmas, we were able to improvise and create snow globes using ornaments with the invite tied to the ribbons:



 

 

 



Next up was the "snow."  We found a company that rented snow machines, promising to create flakes that would not leave a mess, by dissolving quickly:

It looked EXACTLY like snow falling from the sky, cars were even stopping on our street to watch the "blizzard." 

Luckily, Melissa and I discovered the weekend before the party that the snow "melted" basically on contact and wouldn't provide the fun stuff for kids to throw and play in. 

So we ordered SnoWonder, a fine powder that expands into "snow" when you combine it with water.  We ordered enough to make 240 gallons.  And what made it better than snow was that it wasn't cold or wet, so the kids could play as long as they wanted without freezing or needing to change clothes.

To say it was a hit was an understatement!  Although their birthdays fall in December, here in Texas it was a warm 80 degrees outside...kids played in the snow while wearing shorts!

Their was a 60% chance of rain the day of the party, so Brian and Rusty built canopies and a pit to play in.  Fortunately, the rain waited until well after the party ended before arriving.

We also had fencing between our houses so that we didn't have to worry about little ones (ie. Deacon) running into the street.

 

 

The guests also hit up the trampoline.

For the food, we brought out the firepit and roasted hotdogs and s'mores.  And even in the toasty weather, our hot cocoa bar was finished off.

 

 

The boys received lots of toys:

 

 

The cake turned out adorable too:

 



 

We couldn't have picked a better house to move into five years ago. Carson made a best friend, and Brian and I lucked out too!