With a winter birthday, swim parties are usually out of the question.  This year, we found a great indoor pool in Gatesville, TX that allowed us to host a swim party in February.  A few years ago it snowed on her birthday so we thought a Polar Bear & Penguin themed party would be perfect for February.  Little did we know it'd be in the 70's…. that's Texas for ya!

The Invitation (available here)

The Cake

This might be my favorite cake that I've made to date!  I thought the penguins and polar bears turned out really cute.  The birthday girl was very specific about how she wanted the cake.  She requested an igloo with a penguin sliding down into a pool.  I started with a 3 layer, 10″ tier on the bottom. For the top tier, I cut the 10″ cakes in half and stacked half layers.  I used fondant to create the penguins and polar bears.  I watched this great tutorial to learn how to create the penguins.  For the igloo on top, I used Rice Crispy treats to form the dome and covered it in fondant, like this tutorial.  The pool was filled with blue icing.

Polar Bear and Penguin Chocolate Covered Oreos

These were fun to make.  I saw several cute inspirations on Pinterest and came up with my own version.  The polar bears were covered with white chocolate.  The ears were white Sixlets, the eyes were black confetti sprinkles, the tongue was a pink confetti sprinkle, and the nose was a large candy eye.  For the penguins, I covered the Oreos in milk chocolate and use white, black and orange fondant for the face and flippers. 

Hot Chocolate Bar (sign graphic available here)

To warm up after swimming, we had hot chocolate with marshmallows and chocolate filled spoons.  The chocolate spoons were made with melted Hershey's Milk Chocolate Chips and topped with snowflake sprinkles.

Party Food  (Melted Snow water bottle labels available here)

   Favor Bags (printables available here)

Thank You Notes (available here)