Brantley's 3rd Birthday Ice Cream Social



We live in Kansas City and our families are 4 and 2.5-hour-drives away in Iowa and Wichita.  They are busy with their own kids and I never want them to feel obligated to travel here for a short-lived birthday party.  Therefore, I know the only way Brantley will have regularly-scheduled birthday parties is if I throw a party for his friends!  Enter: Brantley's very first friend birthday party!  Now, I know many of his friends are his friends because we are friends with their parents, and that's okay!  But, I limited the guest list to kids near Brantley's age and those he can easily recognize and name.  Basically daycare friends + new neighborhood friends + old neighborhood friends.

My goal was to keep it very low key.  Seeing that his birthday weekend is also a holiday weekend, I wanted to go easy on myself.  I decided on a late Sunday afternoon ice cream social.  No meal, no cake, no decor, no favors, just ice cream with some fun toppings.  Honestly, it was so nice not worrying about all of that other stuff and I still feel like the party turned out super cute!








I ordered the invites from Etsy and printed them at Walmart's photo lab, which made them super cheap and easy.

Ordered from Party Invites & More on Etsy

We hand delivered the invites to our neighbors, which was one of the cutest things ever!


Despite not going overboard with all of the party details, I did, however, plan a couple of themed party activities!  First, the kids made an ice cream cone craft.  (I know there will be a point when my boys want nothing to do with crafts, so I need to get it out of my system now while I still can!)  I pre-cut triangular "ice cream cones" and the kids used a fork and brown paint to make the criss-crosses of the cone.  Then they glued it onto a piece of paper and topped it with a flattened cupcake liner (I had lots of colors to choose from).  Finally, I had a whole bunch of embellishments they could use to decorate their ice cream cone.  I wish I had taken a picture of all of the finished products because they did turn out super cute!  Here is Brantley's.













Notice all of the moms helping with the crafts?  It's worth noting that all of the dads were drinking beer and watching the Royal's game on our deck. ;)

After the craft, we did gifts (which was a crazy, stressful process for me, so no pics!) and then it was time for the pinata!  I found an ice cream cone pinata on Oriental Trading's website that was perfect for the occasion.  I made the kids line up from smallest to biggest and even with 11 kids (and Craig's help), it took two rounds through the batting order to release the candy!

(Brittany, check out the picture of Charlie.  He's putting his Saturday morning switch hitting skills to good use!  Jimmy will be proud!)








After the pinata, we sang to Brantley and all enjoyed ice cream.








That's basically it for the actual party.  Some of our neighbors stuck around all evening and we ordered pizzas, continued drinking, and played bags.  I know I've mentioned before, but I'm so, so, so grateful that this is the neighborhood we choose to move to!  It's only been a few months, but we have already formed so many great friendships!  I can't wait for Brantley to grow up with all of these kids...and I look forward to many more parties with their awesome parents!

Next up--Brantley's actual birthday!

6 comments:

  1. This is GENIUS! I love this idea! And you're making me want ice cream so that's not helping lol. We're not having a bday party for Mason this year because I decided I wanted to take him to Disneyland instead. I've been talking it up everyday saying we are going to Mickey's house for his birthday and he seems excited! BUT it's my niece's bday 2 days after his so we're having a family bday celebration and an ice cream bar like this for dessert might be perfect! (especially since Mason hates cake!)

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  2. This party was so so fun and such a great idea!!!! All the kids had a blast. The piñata too!! I actually was cleaning out our basement storage during the tornado stuff this week and found a shark piñata that my mom bought for Charlie's first bday (that I obviously never used). I'm wondering if we should bust it out!? Seriously- you rocked that party! So much fun and glad we got to come!

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  3. I absolutely love this idea. Perfection for a summer birthday (and an idea I'm totally tucking away for future use).
    Too funny that all the moms helped with the crafts and the dads were all watching the game. Sounds about right.
    Your neighborhood sounds amazing!!

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  4. That's pretty much how we do birthday parties too since our families are so far away as well. Looks like a fun time!

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  5. What a great party!! And I absolutely love the craft idea; especially since all the kids seem old enough to do most of it themselves. Wyatt's party next year is definitely going to be a lot more low-key; parties are hard work!

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