Football Themed Birthday Party

My son recently turned 8-years old and wanted a football themed birthday party, as well as a "late-night" over (we don't do sleepovers at our house, but that is a different post! lol)

So we decided on a 5 hour long football party with a late-night movie to end it...  and invited 11 boys to come!  I was a little nervous to have it at my house, but it was a HUGE success!

The invite:
We handed out letters explaining that the boys were drafted into the NFL and invited to attend a Spring Training Football Camp.  You can see in the invitation we put the location as "Nelson Stadium" and then our home address and then gave them an idea on what we would be doing.


The party:
When they arrived, we let them decorate flag pendants and then took them outside to take photos in their best photo pose.  I am kicking myself though because I forgot to take a "team" photo with all of them!

My son in his best football pose - and you can see his VIP Field Pass Hanging from his neck...

We made them each VIP Football passes that had a checklist on the back of all the football drills we would be doing.  We put them in vertical badge holders that we had bought from Walmart.

They did the drills, we had dinner, and then I sent them back outside to have a scrimmage game.  Once they were freezing, they came in for cake, ice cream & presents.  We then had them change into the pajamas, play "pin the football between the goalposts" and then settle in for a movie.  The parents started showing up just as the movie ended and the boys squeezed in a quick pillow fight - which is what my son was looking forward to all night!  lol

Football Drills:  We did each of these drills until they were tired of them (except the tackling which they could of done ALL night!  They LOVED it!

Our checklist included -

• Sit-ups
• Push-ups
• Running in Place
• Throwing - we had them throw a football through a hula hoop. 
• Punting - we just had them practice drop kicking a football.
• Kicking - I made a goal post out of PVC pipes and they practiced kicking the football through the uprights.
  
• Tackling - We put a bunch of blankets and pillows on the floor to make for a soft landing.  We then held a rolled egg-shell bed cushion up for them to run and tackle it.  The LOVED this! 
  

The Food:
For the food, I just made it EASY! For dinner we did hot dogs on the grill, chips, and powerade.  The cupcakes came from Sam's Club.  Very easy and they boys loved it!

The Movie:
We watched the "Game Plan" which all the kids really like but it was a little long.  Other football movie ideas I had was "Air Bud" or "Little Giants".

I did have some concern before from a few parents who said that their sons were a little nervous since they didn't know much about football, but I just reassured them that it wouldn't be awkward.  I know that all the boys had a BLAST and were talking about it for weeks!

I actually had even more games planned such as football bingo and a dizzy kicker game with a balloon but we just didn't have time...

I got a lot of my ideas from here on BirthdayPartyIdeas.com.