A Milk & Cookies Birthday

I'm pretty sure our house still smells like sugar from yesterday's festivities.  5 batches of homemade cookies, 1 birthday cake, 3 flavors of ice cream and chocolate milk (both hot and cold) will do that, I guess.

Once the decision was made to hold an Elser Family birthday party, the theme fell right into place.  My husband is a cookie-holic, my son's only request from Santa this year was milk (no kidding...he told me he wanted Santa to bring him milk) and my strength in the kitchen is baking.  So a Milk & Cookies birthday party was born.

Without further adieu...

The food table was cookies, cookies and more cookies.  Chocolate Chip.  Snickerdoodle.  Peanut Butter.  Mint Chocolate.  Sugar.

And cake.  Oh my goodness, the cake.  Not only was it stunning, but seriously the best cake I've ever eaten.

To drink we had hot chocolate (with the option of doctoring it up for the grown ups) and white and chocolate milk.

Decorations were easy.  A birthday banner, polka dot balloons, ribbon and napkins and some paper lanterns I had laying around were the bulk of it. 

I also filled an apothecary jar I had on hand with some Cookie Crisp cereal.  Cheap, easy and a perfect fit with our theme and colors.

Then there was the garland.  A last minute surprise from my uber-crafty and talented sister-in-law.  She made this by hand.  I'm not kidding.  Does it get any cuter?

Our guests were encouraged to fill a bag with cookies to take home.

The presents were wrapped to match the theme.

Of course, the littlest birthday boy and his momma had a coordinating look as well.  (I totally forgot to have someone snap a picture of all 3 of us...darn!)

Here's a source list for anyone who's dying to do their own version of a milk & cookies party.

Invitations, Banner and Printables:  Dimpleprints
Cake:  Just Sweets, which happens to be the side business of a colleague of mine
Plates, Napkins, Balloons:  Party America
Ribbon:  Hobby Lobby
Polka Dot Apron:  Etsy vendor, nikigirl
Two T-Shirt:  Acme T-Shirts in downtown Lawrence

And of course, rarely do I have a 100% original idea.  I got lots of inspiration from my favorite party websites (see blogroll on the right) and a good old-fashioned google search.

And there you have it.  Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go run off some of this sugar!