Pool Party!

Summer is upon us, and around here any reason is a good reason for a party, so let’s pool party!

I recently helped to plan a Beach Themed Pool Party for the twins I nanny for, and it was so fun! You really can’t go wrong with decor, but here are some of the things we did to make the day special and fun!

Invitations

I fell in love with a pool party invite I saw online once, and had to re-create it. We used muted primary colors and a bathing suit each for a boy and a girl. We also made pink invites with a more girly colored pool for Grace to hand out to her friends from school. There’s tons of cute pool party invites out there, but I will also be making these in fill-out form available for FREE download (along with the other paper decor featured) very soon!

Decor

Decorating for a pool party is simple. Balloons in primary colors were used around the pool to create a fun atmosphere that matched the colors of a beach ball, and simple white tablecloths with primary colored napkins as tablerunners were all that was used to decorate!

Food

Keep the food easy as well. For this party, boxed lunches were made ahead of time for the kids as well as adults. The kids’ lunches had a choice of either a turkey or a PB&J sandwich, and they all included a go-gurt, goldfish and a cup of fruit. The adult lunches had the choice of Turkey, Pastrami or an Antipasti sandwich, and they all included potato salad, fruit cup, and a little dessert! Perfectly simple yet loved by everyone, easy to make ahead of time, and a full lunch that can be eaten quickly so the kiddos can get back into that pool!

Dessert

This has to be my favorite part of this party! I decorated cupcakes to look like the beach! The process was a little more time consuming than just slapping on some frosting, but it was a hit with all the kids!

I started by spreading on a plain buttercream frosting onto half of the cupcake, making it a little bit of a wobbly line. I then dipped it into Graham Cracker crumbs. On the other half, I spread blue buttercream on a little thicker, then used a toothpick to make swirly “waves”.  We added a blue construction paper “shark fin” and a drink umbrella (totally found them at the dollar store!) to finish the look.

Drinks

For drinks, we had mini water bottles and lemonade pouches in red tubs of ice, each with a printed sign.

The adults could head over for “Adult Swim” and hit up the mommy drink or the daddy tap.

Want to know what was in our Adult Swim Punch?!
1 Bottle of Simply Limeade
1 Bottle of Sparkling Water
1/4 bottle or so of Raspberry Vodka (We also mixed in blackberry vodka!)

Mix together and serve with sliced lemons and limes in it.

Favors

We bought sand buckets at the dollar store and added favor tags, thanking guests for partying with us and set them at a table with a candy bar filled with colorful candies from Starburst to Lemonheads to gumballs! Kids could shovel the candy they wanted and take it home. The joke was that it was the parents’ worst nightmare, kids’ dream come true!

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Entertainment

Really? The great thing about a pool party is that there is built in entertainment! The only thing added to make it better was dollar store pool noodles and beachballs.

Party on!