Jacob's 6th Birthday Baseball Party

Jake was was so excited about finally having his first 'real' party....he had a list of To-Do's that he carried around for over a month....what decorations he wanted, what games he wanted to play, his invite list. And almost daily, he would ask me why I was working on other people's parties and not his! Legitimate question for a 6 year old, right?

I found the team banner on clearance at Joann's. I cut out vinyl letters and added some ribbon. (yes, if you know me, you know a wrinkled table cloth or banner is a huge pet peeve...but believe me, I tried to iron! The banner is a foot shorter than when started...I melted it!)

With a December birthday, it was fun to incorporate the little tree and ornaments.

I purchased the invitations on Ebay. Jake chose to have Big Papi on his, over Varitek, and he couldn't wait to send them out!

Since the party was after school, we served hot dogs, chips, popcorn and only a few sweets..marshmallows, pretzels and cupcakes.

My husband has an enormous baseball card collection, so I asked him for a few boxes to set around as props.... he brought home five cases that are at least 3'x4'.....so not what I had asked for but we certainly had our choice of what color boxes to use! (He informed me that it was only 1/5 of his collection!)

No worries, the Red Sox wine is just there for looks!!

All of the printables were purchased from Parties by Hardy on ETSY. I printed them out and the kids punched and cut! I did add the numbers to some of them. (I felt bad about all the cards so I tried to add more than I had planned! I figure Jake will get a kick out of looking at the pictures as he gets older, thinking that his Dad did that for him.)

The favors were fun to put together. I picked up buckets at iParty and personlized them with vinyl initials of each guest. We included Big League Chew (which I found much less expensive on Amazon by the case), Cracker Jacks, Red Sox M&Ms, bean bag baseballs, baseball cup and the helmet their cupcake came in.

Jake had asked me to make him a baseball frame when he saw the paper. I thought it might be fun to have all of his buddies sign the frame. Will be fun to look back on someday!

He was so excited to be the center of attention! 

Although, baseball was an odd theme in the middle of winter, I had a blast working with Jake on his first big friend party! I think he might just have been my most demanding client so far! :-)