Monday, January 25, 2010

Ways to Get Your Little Coach Involved

Whether you have a boy or a little girl, its fun to go visit daddy and do some fun things with Daddy at the school! Here are several things that you can to keep your child happy and involved during the football season. I am also listing fun things to do before a game!

(By the way- anytime I use football as my sport, keep in mind that my husband is a football coach, so if you are a Baseball, Volleyball, or Basketball Family, then remember that you can do the same things, just make it about your preferred sport:)

1) Take the kids to practice. Maybe your husband will feel nice and give momma some time to go shopping- alone:)

2) Let the kids decorate their Coaches Office, or desk! Make signs, goody bags, a card, anything that your kids will have fun doing!

3)Decorate and hang signs at the stadium or in the stands. You can even make signs and hang then in the locker room before the game day!

4) We decorate the coaches cars with shoepolish and ribbon!

5) If they are old enough they can be ball or bat boys, or if you have a daughter that likes to cheer- see if she can hang on the sidelines and cheer with the squad! Its always fun for the kids to be around the older ones, plus it gives you an opportunity to sit in peace to watch the game and not to mention that you can meet some potential babysitters!

6) At the 2 minute mark of the 4th quarter, head down to the gate to the feild and once the game ends, let your kids run out to do the alma mater with the team. You are never too old for this! (just check to make sure your district allows this- some do, some don't)

7)Take the kids to the pep rally's and let them dress to that week's theme. Maybe the Head Coach will allow the little ones to sit with the team!

8) Have a jersey made for your child! Even if you have a girl- there are lots of ways to dress a girl appropriately for a football game that isn't too cheerleaderish, if that's not her (or your) thing.

9) Teach then gameday chants! We have several that is great for the Raiders, but there are some good generic ones too!

you: "What time is it??"
them "Game Time"

you: "Who are we?"
them: "We are championions"

10) Take the entire summer and Save Milk Cartons (and the lids), during 2 a days get all the coaches kids together to make shaker bottles for the fans in the stands! Let them decorate them and fill them up with popcorn or rocks, then you can hot glue the lids on them. Store them in mesh laundry bags so that you can drag them to the games for your kids to hand out!



Wednesday, January 20, 2010

How to have a CHEAP Birthday party!

You can have a GREAT Birthday party that will cost you next to nothing when you use your own resources!

Last March, Jace wanted to have a Football Birthday Party. I am much better at themed parties than anything else, so when he said Football, I jumped on that!!














































Josh opened up the JV football field and we had a real live birthday party on the field. We made our own hotdogs and wrapped them in foil and served them from the concession stand.
Then we got the tackling dummies, footballs, field markers and a few other things out and Josh had the kids do running drills and then the kids ran up and down the field and just had a blast.
I bought white Tshirts and painted each child their own jersey. The party favors were pretty simple. I had made football banners with Happy Birthday Jace, and I even made a run through sign for the kids to run through- which they thought was pretty cool!
I didn't need to do much decorating, so that saved quite a bit of money!
When it came time for the cake, we sang Happy Birthday and ate the cake on the picnic tables in front of the concession stand!

You can do the same kind of party on your basketball court, baseball field, track, whatever you choose and the best part is that you don't have to pay a fee to reserve it!




























































This past month, my 4 year old wanted a Basketball Party at a basketball game. So we teamed up with our Head Basketball Coach and we threw together a little birthday party during the game. At halftime, the kids went and played on the court and then we headed into the study hall to open presents and eat cake. After that we headed back into the gym and the Girls and Boys Basketball team signed a ball for him.

Fun ways to decorate for an Awesome Sports Nursery

My favorite way to decorate is with sports stuff. Not just ANY sports stuff, but REAL stuff. I don't like that store bought stuff that looks like kids stuff! ha

Personally, I wanted to decorate my child's room in a way that they could grow with it. They don't care what it looks like as a baby, so i figured why not go with decorations for an older child to save myself some time and money.

Go to Goodwills and purchase used Football Helmets, Bats, footballs, baseballs, and Batting Helmets, Jersey's and anything else that you see that you like! You can sit out a basket full of old baseballs, frame newspaper clippings of your favorite sports articles, put a team jersey in a shadow box on the wall. (josh got lucky because he has his college and high school football jersey's)

Anything that you find from Goodwill: clean, re-paint if needed, Refinish and display it!

Also, instead of purchasing a chest of drawers, see if there is an old locker sitting around at the school. You would be suprised to know that lots of trashed lockers are waiting to be claimed!

Make shelves in your new locker and use it as a chest of drawers, or a place to put blankets, diapers, wipes, ect.

Do you have your husband's letter jacket in the attic? Pull it out and hang it on the closet door!

I also have a great instruction manual on how to make your own wooden locker, if that is more your style!

I found 2 vintage wall borders for my boys rooms and then i painted their walls and glazed each of them. Both rooms are very football vintage, but they are both very different!


I created a scoreboard out of corkboard to hang on the wall. I crackle painted the frame and then painted the corkboard black, measured off the lines and stenciled the letters!
(I would be happy to email a picture of this to you. I don't want to post it on this site as it has personal information on it)

I have several websites on the right that I love to use for either decorating or buying stuff on!