Mommy Lessons 101: "Lets Have a Ball" Sports Birthday Party Ideas

Here's a co-post with my sister, Becca. She and I both threw sports parties, so we collaborated to share them here together! The theme was most 2 year old's favorite thing the whole world - BALLS. Being a 2 year old party, we made sure to keep it very simple. We had a free play kind of party. There were different stations for the kids to explore.

The party games included:

1. Playing in the ball pit

2. Shooting a basketball in the hoop

3. Kicking a soccer ball through the cones

4. Playing with the parachute and trying to keep the ball on the parachute

5. Hitting balloons with ball plates {taped to paint sticks so the kids could keep them up in the air}

6. Throwing a football to the football player {or if you don't have a football player, have the kids throw the football through a hula hoop}

7. Hitting a baseball off the tee
8. A pool full of beachballs - kids had a blast with this!

9. Trampoline with balls. The kids tried to bounce, but keep the balls on the trampoline.

Even the Dads enjoyed joining in some of this fun as they tried to do the tasks as well!

Refreshments:

We had lunch where I served sports drinks, ball sandwiches (round shape), cracker jacks in honor of baseball, sport cookies, and ball shaped fruit (melon balls, canteloupe balls, grapes). And cake is always a favorite at our parties!

Here are two variations of a basketball cake. Below, it is done with a star frosting tip to give the effect. But, I didn't have a star tip, so here are the directions on how I made the cake:

1. Bake two pyrex bowls of cake batter and place finished cakes together to form a ball.

2. Frost the cake with orange frosting.

3. Mix orange food coloring in white sugar to create orange sugar crystals.

4. Press orange sugar crystals all over the ball to give textured effect

5. Use black food coloring gel to draw basketball lines.