Eli's Party

Eli has been planning his 8th Birthday party for months. When he turned 6, we rented a local indoor soccer field and he had about 18 kids join him in a huge soccer game, all the while raising money to buy soccer balls to send to Kenya. It was a blast and one of the most memorable birthdays we've had in our family. This year, Eli wanted to play flag football. Then he wanted to play baseball. Then he decided on whiffle ball. Back and forth, around and around, but the core idea was the same: he wanted boys and their dads to get together to play some sports.

Since we've been very last minute this summer, the party didn't come together until a week before it happened. Eli decided on flag football, with a possible side of kickball. We rented the same space and bought some flags in preparation for the big event. Because we were so last minute, we only ended up with about 8 of Eli's friends (plus Maddux), but he didn't mind. The boys (and dads) played football, then kickball, then soccer before having ice cream sundaes on the sidelines. We got water bottles for all of the boys, and Eli asked for donations for charity:water instead of gifts. He raised about $300. WOW! We had several conversations about donations vs. gifts, and in the end, he was very excited about the amount that was raised. He checked his website daily to see if anyone else had contributed and updated us all each time the numbers increased.