About six weeks before my son Avery was going to turn 5, I sat down with him to plan out his party. In years past, I helped guide him into choosing a theme, but this year I wanted him to choose one all on his own.

His birthday is in January, right in the middle of winter, and there is nothing he loves more than playing outside in the snow, and riding with Papa in the snowplow as he clears our long driveway. So it came as no surprise to me when Avery asked for a snowplow-themed birthday bash.

With the theme set, we decided to incorporate one more of Avery’s favorite wintertime activities, and host an outdoor sledding party on our property in Leavenworth, Washington. Because the event would be held outside, we also included a fire pit and hot cocoa bar - filled with a large array of marshmallows.

For years, Minted.com has been my go-to for invitations and I love the variety they offer. I was drawn to a wintery invite where I could personalize it with my own photo. The darling snowflake pattern carried over into the envelopes, address labels, and favor stickers - all adorable details that I look for when designing parties.

I knew I had quite the challenge ahead of me, as I have never seen a snow plow truck birthday party before. For inspiration, I decided to keep it personal, using elements like Avery’s favorite Hot Wheels snow plow truck and one of his favorite books, The Little Snow Plow (Candlewick, 2015) by Lora Koehler, as the favors.

One thing that I started last year with Avery, and I knew I wanted to become a tradition - was to take a moment before all of the guests arrived and surprise him with his party! We decide on the theme together, but I do not show him any elements of the party until the day of!

This is probably my favorite moment of the day! Watching the sheer joy on his face, and how he lights up looking around at all of the details I set up for him!

This mama’s heart couldn’t be more full!

The sweet little dessert table design came together rather quickly. I kept it simple with cake, cookies, and a fun donut tower made to resemble a pile of snowballs!

For the focal point, I sewed a fabric banner and had my dear friend Josie of Chalk Chic Mama design the sign. The inspiration for the sign came from a tiny metal vintage snowplow truck my husband & I bought on eBay that Avery dearly admired. The end result blew me away!

Josie also designed a milestone chalkboard, which I have had her do every year since Avery was born, and each one she creates is better than I could have ever imagined. They are my favorite keepsakes from his parties!

For the cookies, I told Morgan, of Morgan G Co. our theme, colors, and the book we were using as favors, and she created the most beautiful, unique cookies and cake topper!

I nestled her darling cookies into a vintage wooden box, and they were the perfect addition to our dessert table!

I cannot get over how cute these little working snowplows are!

I absolutely loved Morgan’s creativeness on the cake topper with Avery’s name spelled out from the smoke stack, and the number 5 made out of snow hoisted up in the plow was too cute!

My good friend Olivia from Flour + Sugar designed the gorgeous watercolor cake, as well as the 3” mini rainbow chip cake, complete with made-from-scratch rainbow chips in correlating colors to match the party! We placed our mini metal snowplow truck from eBay on top and it was just delightful!

Once all of the guests arrived, we wasted no time and got straight to sledding! I sewed an additional fabric sign, asked Josie write to write out “Avery’s Sledding Hill” and placed it at the top of the hill, easy for guests to see.

We all had such a great afternoon sledding!

When it was time for a break, we headed over to the hot cocoa station.

A third fabric sign read “It’s a marshmallow world in the winter”. A fun sign that alluded to what the guests were about to feast upon.

I filled a wooden tray with sprinkles, classic marshmallows, strawberry marshmallows, mini marshmallows, and two different gourmet marshmallows, along with candy canes, cookies, meringues, and caramel stroopwafles - a sweet stop, sure to charge up anyone’s battery for more sledding!

The children snuggled up by the fire pit with a hot cup of cocoa filled to the brim with marshmallows was a welcomed break from sledding.

We ended the day by enjoying delicious birthday cake & cookies.

Hard to believe that our firstborn son is already FIVE!

Everyone had so much fun sledding that we decided to make it a tradition and host a sledding party every year on Avery’s birthday!

Check out this incredible video of the day below
by KNR Films!

All photos by the talented Mistie McLaughlin Photography

The darling blue and white stripe paper cups and plates are from The Daydream Society.