Ethan is eight!  He is getting very into basketball now as he's in a club at school and we were watching it earlier this year when the Toronto Raptors won the NBA finals.  So it seemed the perfect way to celebrate his birthday this year.  It's funny over the years and as the kids get older I seem to be putting a bit less into organising their birthday parties.  I think that when they were younger the parties were really more for me, and now they're much more about what the kids want (which means keeping the kids busy and fed, and not so much about the decorations).  

This year I wanted to make a few changes to my normal party routine in order to just be a bit more eco minded, and create a bit less waste.  However I noticed that I still had a lot of plastic cups and other things in my party storage boxes, so I decided to use all of those up, instead of buying new eco ones, and just added a bit to them to make them more themed.


Most of Ethan's party was spent on the basketball courts.  We had hired a company to provide the coaches, so they did all of the hard work of organising basketball drills and games for the kids.  When they finished there was a little presentation to give the children each a little medal for doing such a fantastic job. (I'll include details about them at the end with party favours).

Basketball Party Decorations

Then they came into the party room which had a few decorations and we had all set up for them to eat.  The party plates, cups, tablecloths and trays were all extras from previous parties.  I bought the basketball napkins and the stickers for the cups just to add a bit of theming.



Decorations:

• Chalkboard banner (this is great and reusable for future parties)
• 8th birthday banner (I'll keep this one for when Ivy is 8 then pass it on!)
• Basketball napkins
• Basketball stickers

Basketball Party Food

The food was standard party food as well as a bit of basketball themed food (basically anything round or orange!):

• sandwiches
• carrots and hummus
• tangerines
• Hula Hoops
• Oreo cookies
• Ritz crackers
• Cheese balls
• Popcorn
• Cupcakes with basketball (Toronto Raptors) toppers

Basketball Party Favours

As the children are getting older and as we're trying to get more eco we're also changing the way that we do party bags.  So instead of a plastic bag with little plastic toys we're going for one larger item (a basketball) and some sweets in paper bags.

• medals (these were actually leftover from a previous party as well)
• basketball stickers
• paper bags
• assorted sweets
• basketball

And that was it.  Certainly a lot simpler for me to organise, and the kids all had lots of fun!  It will be interesting as we run out of our stash of party bits to try to source some more eco options, so any recommendations are welcome!



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