Splish Splash: 1st Birthday Pool Party

August 05, 2014

Splish Splash: 1st Birthday Pool Party

Even though Leighton had already thrown Sadie a "meerkat" birthday party with purple cake pops at our house on her actual birthday, we also threw a friends and family birthday party to celebrate Sadie in KY. We had a pool party at Mom and Dad's house this past Sunday. I appreciate all the family and friends who drove to see us and celebrate with us. What I appreciate most is all the guest who together raised almost $400 by buying products made by women at Mercy House Kenya instead of bringing Sadie gifts. $400 will go a long way! So awesome guys! If you missed the party or forgot to buy or want to buy more then check out the girls' products by visiting their website HERE.

family friend, Emily, graciously worked the Mercy House table for me!

The decor was pastels and hanging beach balls instead of balloons. Party favors were sunglasses and bubbles which I forgot to give to most of the kids, of course. The food was fruit, cake, cheese and lemonade, sweet tea and water to drink.

set up food under pool house porch

Kids playing in pool and with bubbles

The birthday girl!

The cake deserves its own blog but I will spare you. Katie (Austin) and I attempted to do a trial cake a few days before the party for practice. We watched one episode of Cake Boss that morning, I googled "pool party cakes" and found an image of an easy enough rectangle cake. I (in an over confident manner) thought "Ill save money. This is easy. We can make this instead of paying $60 for someone to make this". You would think the two of us (though we don't bake and have never used fondant) could handle this. We at least thought we could anyway... we laughed through the entire process. When the cake fell apart when we got it out of the pan I knew we were off to a great start : )
End result was .....

Decision for party.... need a new plan! So since I pin-pointed the cake and icing the cake was the problem (even though both were store bought) versus the fondant, I order a plain white, rectangle cake from Wal-Mart for $16. Then I used the remainder of fondant we had to create the pool image we had originally been aiming for and stuck a few umbrellas in it and called it good!

Leighton feeding Sadie a little cake. She enjoyed it and someday will know how hard her mom tried to make it "home-made" Sorry I am not Betty Crocker and I don't enjoy being in the kitchen. There I said it.