Kidsports Adventure Maze and Quest {Riley’s Fourth Birthday Party}

We held Riley’s fourth birthday party last Sunday afternoon at Kidsports in Elmwood. Even though I did talk Riley into having his party there, I think he had a really good time. In fact, I think all of the kids did. The party had a loose theme of Ripslinger, the villain plane from Planes. Riley likes him because, duh, he’s green.

After both boys were in bed on Saturday night, Kenny and I turned on the LSU football game (still can’t believe they beat Wisconsin) and got to work on the party prep. Because we had the party at a place that hosts them all the time, there wasn’t too much for us to do. But I did make a couple of things and Kenny of course made the cake, so we got all of that done and packed everything else up so it was ready to go for the next day.

Nola made two cookie cakes, which Kenny stacked on top of each other with a layer of buttercream icing in between. Then he covered the entire cake in a thick layer of blue colored icing (for the sky) and I used dehydrated marshmallows to make the clouds. Kenny perched a few of Riley’s new planes on top (Ripslinger obviously included), and that was that. Didn’t it turn out awesome??? I loved the finished product.

We arrived at Kidsports about an hour before the party so we could set up. I made fruit kabobs and chicken enchilada tortilla roll-ups as appetizers and also set out goldfish, pretzel chips, homemade roasted nuts, and M&Ms. Nola made airplane sugar cookies as favors and I created tags for them in PicMonkey. I made Riley a new subway art and framed it as well as his birthday interview. And of course we hung up the birthday banner I made for Riley when he turned one. It’s tradition!

We also met our party assistants, Chloe, Mario, and Sean. All three of them were absolutely wonderful. They were so incredibly helpful the entire time we were there. Mario was by far our favorite, though. He was so great with the kids, bouncing and jumping right alongside them. And it didn’t take him long to capture Rory’s attention, which impressed me the most. The little one doesn’t go to just anyone, but by the end of the day he was reaching up for Mario to hold him. So cute. And they even have matching dimples!

The kids played upstairs in the maze for the first half of the party and downstairs on the trampoline and the inflatables for the second half. Since the maze is completely enclosed by mesh, it was really hard to get decent pictures when the kids were in there. The fact that they were moving so fast didn’t help, either.

Chloe lined everyone up when it was time to move to the second phase of the party. The kids filed down the stairs and were immediately let loose in the big inflatable area. There was one big bounce house with a slide, a huge inflatable obstacle course, padded ramps and beams, and even a basketball and soccer area. Not to mention the super long trampoline. I even had fun on that!

 

The kids (and some of the adults) played hard until it was time for pizza. Then Sean shut down all of the inflatables to encourage the kids to move to the back tables. They had worked up quite an appetite, so they didn’t mind stopping play to go eat. Much.

A bit more playtime on the trampoline and the deflated bounce houses and then it was time for cake. We took some family pics with uncooperative boys, lit the candles, sang to the birthday boy, and dished out the good stuff. Riley licked all of the blue icing off his piece and was done. Go figure. (Again.)

After the party was over, Chloe, Mario, and Sean packed everything up for us, including Riley’s gifts, and took it all out to the car. Mario even helped Kenny load it. Once we got home, Riley was bursting with excitement to open his presents, so that’s what we did.

He got a few Lego sets, a couple of shirts, a number of trucks, and some Scooby Doo stuff. He was thrilled. Kenny and I were, too. The whole day had been more than we could have asked for. It was such a fun party, we had a great turnout, and everyone seemed to have a fantastic time.

Thanks to everyone who could come out to celebrate our four-year-old with us!