7th birthday party time

For Daniel's 7th birthday we decided that he could have a birthday party. We felt it would be nice for him to have a party with some of his school friends. We sat down and worked out his invite list. We decided to have the party at church and made it sports theme which I was pretty excited about. We were blessed further by our Children's Minister telling us that we could, and should, use the jumping castle at the party. Something we weren't planning on having. 

On Friday night I put together Daniel's cake. He was keen to have the Woman's Weekly Train cake but as it wasn't relevant to sport I told him he could choose between the cricket bat and ball, the football (which I'd make into an AFL ball) or a racing car. He chose the cricket bat and ball.

The foundation

Bat is done

I needed to make the cricket ball edible, instead of the pingpong ball as suggested in the book. It worked well.

Gluten Free cupcakes too

I also made Swans cupcakes.

My favourite creative part for the food was making sports guernsey jellys. They looked great (I think) and were very fun to come up with.

Perth Glory (soccer), Parramatta Eels (nrl), North Melbourne (AFL or the Bulldogs nrl), Fremantle Dockers (afl), Rabbitohs (nrl), Australia, Gold Coast Suns (afl), Sydney Swans (afl), Bulldogs (afl)

I also made sport ball fruit skewers.

And soccer and AFL sports players.

Daniel also worked hard to write a personal message for every friend who came on their party bag. Very sweet!

To Oscar, Thank you for coming.

To Sadew, I hope you liked my party. He drew a picture of them playing at school in the adventure playground.

To Sophie. I hope you had fun.

To Alexander, I hope you had fun with Flynnie. (because there weren't going to be many young kids Alexander's age there)

Happy Birthday (for his party bag)

Saturday afternoon came around (we made it an afternoon party because of Saturday morning sport now being played by many of Daniel's friends) and we headed to church and set up.

The entrance

Sports shirts

The food

Daniel was pretty happy with his cake.

And James was all set with the coffee machine.

I have decided that I need to have 1.5 hours to set up before a party just so that it isn't too stressful. 1 hour just doesn't seem to be quite enough to feel on top of it when people arrived.

Being a sports party we set up different activities in different rooms. It had been raining a lot prior to Saturday so we decided to keep it inside which worked out fine (and was even more fortunate to have the jumping castle). 
There was soccer in the carpeted hall.

Which then changed to balloon volleyball.

We had basketball in the basketball hall.

AFL handball target.

Which also became shooting hoops with the AFL ball.

Oscar joked about handballing to Grayma. She wasn't so keen on the idea, commenting 'Don't even think about it'.

And the jumping castle.

We had colouring in in the food room and James hooked up the Swans game for people to watch as well (which we sadly lost but was still fun to have on).

From what I gathered from people's comments, everyone had a lot of fun and were occupied during the party. We didn't end up doing any set games because everyone was just busy. The jumping castle was definitely a huge hit!

Chatting around food

Daniel's best mates at school - Alex, Sadew and Lachie (and Flynnie in the photo too)

Jelly was a hit

All smiles

Lovely friends

Mates since birthday but also preschool

We then came together to sing Happy Birthday to Daniel and do the cake.

Daniel was happy with his cake and was keen to have the ball.

Everyone singing

And photos

It was a great fun party! Daniel had a blast and did really well with moving around to the different activities but also with morning around to different people during the day.
It was then time to pack up including pack up the jumping castle. The kids were a great help with rolling the air out.

We then headed home for dinner. It is hard to fit in the presents when the kids get home late from the party so we decided that Daniel could only open 2 presents after dinner and then he could open the rest in the morning. I was amazed at how he was fine with that and understood why.

He was very happy and grateful for all the generous gifts that he received. Happy 7th birthday Daniel. I hope it was a wonderful party for you and that it gives you precious memories.