If you have a winter birthday then you know how tough it can be plan a water related birthday party. My boys love the water and could live in pools or at the beach. Poor Hudson has always loved the idea of pool party, but as a winter baby it can never happen for him at an outdoor pool. An indoor pool is always an option and this year we decided to host his winter pool party at Life Time. Life Time has a beautiful indoor pool that has a large kid’s pool area and the pool water and room is heated, which made it the perfect solution. I’m all about doing less this year so, I stepped away from Pinterest and hosted an effortless winter pool party,

Here is what we did:

I love a custom invitation, because with etsy it’s so easy to tackle. I picked out this shark inspired invitation and did the printing at Digital Lizard and picked up envelopes at Paper Source.

The indoor pool party was broken down into two parts. When the guests first arrived they were lead to the family changing room where everyone got to change into their bathing suits and then head to the pool. Pool time was around 1 hour and I was able to bring in small toys. So, I picked up cute sea life squirt guns and a couple of fish dive toys and toypedo bandits.

The nice part about having the party at Life Time is that you got your own special pool employee that was in the water to make sure the kids were playing nicely and helping with games. So, if parents didn’t want to go into the pool they didn’t have to. Kids were given a quick swim test and if they couldn’t pass it then they needed to wear a life jacket. Most parents decided to join in on the fun anyway, but it was nice to have a Life Time team member in the pool as an extra pair of eyes.

Don’t you love my mom in the pool? Her perfectly coifed hair didn’t get a drop of water on it!

I on the other hand ended up like a drowned rat. I had put on my bathing suit just in case and then all of my little friends started arriving and I got caught up in the moment and went in with all intentions to keep my make up and hair dry. Yup, that went out the window when Hudson’s feisty friends found me with their squirt guns!

After our pool time we went up to an activity studio that was set up for our birthday party. Less is more has become my mantra from 2017 so, I went minimal with my decor. Honestly I probably didn’t have to do anything, because the room is bright and happy on it’s own, but I couldn’t help myself.

I picked up this cute Happy Birthday balloon garland at Five Below for $5!!! It’s the cheapest I have ever found them for. Each letter was 16″ tall. I need to go back and pick up some extras for my party supply stash.

Life Time provided all of the party supplies like tablecloths, utensils and paper goods. I zhushed up their tablecloth with tissue paper garland I picked up at Target’s dollar stop area. You have no idea the strength it took for me not to order actual cloth tablecloths, but less is more and I let it go!

I used my adorable PARTY candy dishes and filled them with Swedish fish as a nod to my Shark/Water theme.

I went to a local bakery and ordered a somewhat simple cake with only buttercream frosting to save on costs. I had them make the top look like waves and then added some toy sharks instead of getting fondant ones made.

For the goodies I got little plastic treat bags at Michaels and filled them with blue paper shred and then added more Swedish fish and gummy sharks. They looked like adorable little bags of fish that you would get from the fish store.

For the table set up I went simple and just added some balloons as directions. I picked up shark balloons and then clear balloons to look like bubbles and grouped them together.

The room we were in had a big TV where we could have played a video if we liked, but we left it off and they simply played music for the kids.

The birthday boy had so much fun that the poor guy passed out after cake!

Hosting a party will always be hard work, but keeping it simple and just adding a couple of small touches to go with theme made things much easier. The staff at Life Time handled the majority of the set up. They would have done all of it, but I’m a perfectionist and wanted to be there. They also handled all of the food, drinks, and clean up for me. They even bought all of the birthday gifts out to the car for me!

All of the beautiful photos are by Elizabeth Kristin Photography! Liz is simply the best and my go to photography for all of my photo needs. I would seriously have her follow me around like paparazzi to document my life if I had the budget. Haha.