All-Star Sports Bash

Never mind the fact that my baby is just a few months away from turning four, today we're going to talk about his third birthday party...way back in January!
For the entirety of Levi's life, he has been a sports enthusiast. If it involves a ball, the boy is naturally drawn to it. He doesn't watch tv, but if there's a sport on, he'll literally freeze in front of it to watch. He spends every waking moment playing one sport or another. I'd like to think he's destined to be some sort of athlete (or mascot, I guess?!?), but only time will tell.
Naturally, then, when it was time to start planning Levi's birthday party, I knew we had to go with a sports theme. This party represented a major turning point for us in that we had decided we would absolutely be doing no more parties at home after a debacle of Colton's last party where the weather literally forced everyone, including their chaos and mud, into our house. Luckily, Virginia Beach has an amazing indoor sports facility, the Field House, that I knew would be perfect for our boy!
And luckily, they were kind enough to let me get in the afternoon before to do a bit of decorating.

The table runners are just turf that I had cut from Home Depot's "carpet" section. I don't remember exactly what it cost, but it was super cheap. I designed the pennant flags myself (going with a black and gold theme for our beloved Steelers), and the baseball is just scrapbook paper.

One of my...and Levi's...favorite details were the sports card cake centerpieces. I didn't realize trading cards were so freaking expensive, so these came in a big higher than I had intended, but the good news is almost a year later, he still has them displayed in his room!

The favor/gift table featured a PVC goal post and field table cloth I had gotten from Target.

For the actual party, Levi got to choose 3 sports/activities from a list. He chose obstacle course, soccer, and baseball. Honestly, the staff didn't do a fantastic job of organizing the games (I think they were a bit thrown off by the 25ish 3 year olds!), but the kids...and most importantly, V...didn't notice! My boy had a blast.

After an hour, we moved into the party room for lunch (hot dogs, chips, and fruit). I had set up a concessions table, but it sadly never got filled because the place brought the food on carts right as they were serving it:(

And after lunch, we went ahead and did the cake.  My neighbor/good friend helped me make the cake, as in I did the baking and she did the decorating. It was pretty darn tasty and looked amazing, but man that was definitely more time-consuming than I had banked on! Levi was in love with those baseball guys on top, though, so in the end, we'll call it a win.

Following cake, we concluded the chaos with a baseball pinata. My boys both insist on pinatas after reading a Llama, Llama birthday party book that featured one. This one was filled with sports ball chocolates, which I'm sure the parents loved me for, but one has to stick with a theme, right?!?

To bid everyone adieu, we gave them each a favor...a sports water bottle from Oriental Trading filled with a sports bouncy ball and some Big League Chew...and sent them to the awesome indoor playground at the Field House. 

While they played, the staff brought all the gifts, decorations, etc to our car, and we happily left without having to clean up...a major plus over all those home parties where we cleaned up for days afterwards. Mom and Dad were happy, and Levi was happy because he had a blast...so much so that he is already mentioning having his fourth birthday party there. Little does this kid know mom can't repeat a theme, so we'll have to see who wins!