Last weekend, we were finally able to have a birthday party for Jonathan, who turned 5 a few weeks ago. Of course, because for at least a month in the lead-up to his birthday/party he let us know in every single waking moment that he really, really liked LEGO... it was a LEGO party.
This post is to briefly share about the party that Jonathan himself claims was "awesome". To him, though, every day recently has been "the best day of his life", so I haven't taken it as a genuine compliment.
Invitations:
I am secretly quite proud of these. Using coloured cardboard, double sided mounting tape, and my friend's clever cutting device, the invitations were made, hinting at what the theme of the party was going to be:
Decorations:
When people are trying to find your house for the first time (in a suburb some GPS's don't acknowledge that your street even exists), balloons are a winner! And, because I really like themes, I drew two eyes and a smiling mouth onto 'LEGO head' balloons (well, without the top piece) tied to balloon sticks, and taped to our letterbox:
Also outside I stuck large cardboard LEGO bricks, made the same way the invitations were.
Inside there were more LEGO cardboard bricks stuck to the walls, but made the lazy way - with the circles drawn on, and not cut out individually and stuck on with double sided mounting tape... I wasn't crazy enough to do that with all of them!
... Just the ones the parents will see ;)
Activities & Games:
With my experience in hosting kids parties, I always plan to do too much. Like having too many games that we struggle to get through. Knowing that 4-6 year olds have a slightly limited attention span, I rounded it down to 4 games, and a couple of activities... Which still changed slightly to fill in time while I was organising myself, and to keep the many children entertained!
The activities included:
Colour in your own LEGO man. This was the first activity to do while children arrived.
Once they had finished, they were stuck to the LEGO man wall:
Be a Master Builder. Once their LEGO man colouring-in was finished, there were some 'giant LEGO blocks' set out on the table ready to be built:
Wear a LEGO hat! I was a bit proud of these, too. In my LEGO party research/planning phase, I saw a few LEGO themed masks, but had dismissed the idea due to complexity and the need to buy too many materials to make it work.
It was about that time I remembered that I have a terrible, terrible habit of collecting bottle lids! (I seriously have a stash of several hundred, I'm not joking). So picking out a few yellow ones, and hot glueing them onto some small plastic yellow plates, I'd made a LEGO hat for each child to wear!
Thus proving that it is totally worth collecting hundreds of useless items just incase an opportunity like this comes up...
Right, Husband!?
P.S. This 'activity' is best prepared completely before the party... Not just mostly prepared, like I had. I suggest attaching the elastic before the party, as it's too time consuming to punch holes, cut elastic, and thread/tie each one when you've got 15 children to make them for!
... Which was why we started playing Musical Statues while the kids waited for me to get the hats ready.
The games included:
- Musical statues to the "Everything is Awesome" LEGO movie song.
- Holding a LEGO head balloon between your knees and racing up and down the hallway (another impromptu time filler while I was still organising the LEGO hats).
- LEGO and Ladle race (giant everything FTW!). This idea came from seeing a LEGO and spoon race in my 'research', but altering it to make this one different.
I noticed that the kids were a bit too young to realise that (in the moment of panic when they heard the word "race") it's called "cheating" to hold the giant LEGO brick onto the ladle, but it was fun watching them try, and especially watching Jonathan practice before the party to see if it would be an enjoyable game or not! He walked so slowly and carefully, I was sure the game would take 20 minutes.
- LEGO piñata!
The last game was a LEGO brick piñata. Good friends had come over for dinner the night before, and basically did this part for me (among many other things to set-up and make!). I used an empty tissue box, filled it with lollies, they then wrapped it in yellow paper, attached string to hold it up, and all that was left to do was attach some more yellow bottle lids via a hot glue gun, and voila:
Piñata's are always a great success - even the adults joined in for a bit! :)
This is the queue to the piñata:
Food:
Food is another thing that often turns into too much at a party (and therefore lots of leftovers). Having the party in the afternoon, it was decided that it would be a really simple afternoon tea, with only a few items available.
Which were:
Cheese & fairy bread LEGO sandwiches. Though I was wanting more flavours, it became clear that the spreads literally spread out of the insides when making the circles, which were made using a plastic shot glass upside down. So fairy bread and cheese it was.
LEGO tim tams, mainly for the adults. These were Tim Tams with those Cadbury roll things attached with melted chocolate.
Fruit kebabs (so that there was something healthy!), and rainbow jelly:
I'm totally just making rainbow jelly next time. That was all they really wanted, and the "ohhhhh rainbow jellyyyyy!!" as soon as it came out was priceless.
Probably due to the limited menu, I actually remembered to bring them out this time, unlike at Ben's party.
And since the whole party plan took 1.5 hours, and there was still 30 minutes to fill in before parents arrived back to pick up their children, I was thankful that The LEGO Movie tied in with both the theme of the party and the interests of the guests, so we watched this for about 20 minutes before cutting the cake, and then for another few minutes while the kids were eating cake, and waiting until their parents arrived :)
Cake:
The cake design had changed about 4 times before the party. It was definitely going to be LEGO themed, despite Jonathan wanting a Hulk cake (perhaps to match the Hulk jellies I'd made for him to take to school on his actual birthday), claiming that "Hulk is a LEGO Marvel Superheroes character".
Though I had originally been planning on making a Good cop/Bad cop cake, I did consider changing it to be Hulk so that he would be happy, then thought of just a basic rectangular LEGO brick, which I would have done, though it didn't really appeal to me as being very "wow."
Oh, the pressure when you have anxiety!!
But in the end, due to extreme exhaustion and an increasing lack of time, Husband assured me that whatever I wanted to make, Jonathan will love, because he loves cake, and he won't remember what he initially asked for when it's brought out anyway.
So the final cake was... *drum roll*
A really simple buttercream LEGO head, with melted dark chocolate as the eyes and mouth:
And Husband was right - Jonathan loved it :)
And so did we, as it was kinda breakfast/recess/dessert for the following 4 days after the party. Why did I make it so big again?? Oh yeah. Because I have anxiety, and was worried it wouldn't feed everyone at the party.
But it did, and was probably big enough to feed the guests' family and friends, all of our family and friends, our neighbours, the postman, and distant relatives, too.
Thank you so much to everyone who came and celebrated with my littlest boy.
Invitations:
I am secretly quite proud of these. Using coloured cardboard, double sided mounting tape, and my friend's clever cutting device, the invitations were made, hinting at what the theme of the party was going to be:
Decorations:
When people are trying to find your house for the first time (in a suburb some GPS's don't acknowledge that your street even exists), balloons are a winner! And, because I really like themes, I drew two eyes and a smiling mouth onto 'LEGO head' balloons (well, without the top piece) tied to balloon sticks, and taped to our letterbox:
Also outside I stuck large cardboard LEGO bricks, made the same way the invitations were.
Inside there were more LEGO cardboard bricks stuck to the walls, but made the lazy way - with the circles drawn on, and not cut out individually and stuck on with double sided mounting tape... I wasn't crazy enough to do that with all of them!
... Just the ones the parents will see ;)
Activities & Games:
With my experience in hosting kids parties, I always plan to do too much. Like having too many games that we struggle to get through. Knowing that 4-6 year olds have a slightly limited attention span, I rounded it down to 4 games, and a couple of activities... Which still changed slightly to fill in time while I was organising myself, and to keep the many children entertained!
The activities included:
Colour in your own LEGO man. This was the first activity to do while children arrived.
Once they had finished, they were stuck to the LEGO man wall:
Be a Master Builder. Once their LEGO man colouring-in was finished, there were some 'giant LEGO blocks' set out on the table ready to be built:
Wear a LEGO hat! I was a bit proud of these, too. In my LEGO party research/planning phase, I saw a few LEGO themed masks, but had dismissed the idea due to complexity and the need to buy too many materials to make it work.
It was about that time I remembered that I have a terrible, terrible habit of collecting bottle lids! (I seriously have a stash of several hundred, I'm not joking). So picking out a few yellow ones, and hot glueing them onto some small plastic yellow plates, I'd made a LEGO hat for each child to wear!
Thus proving that it is totally worth collecting hundreds of useless items just incase an opportunity like this comes up...
Right, Husband!?
P.S. This 'activity' is best prepared completely before the party... Not just mostly prepared, like I had. I suggest attaching the elastic before the party, as it's too time consuming to punch holes, cut elastic, and thread/tie each one when you've got 15 children to make them for!
... Which was why we started playing Musical Statues while the kids waited for me to get the hats ready.
The games included:
- Musical statues to the "Everything is Awesome" LEGO movie song.
- Holding a LEGO head balloon between your knees and racing up and down the hallway (another impromptu time filler while I was still organising the LEGO hats).
- LEGO and Ladle race (giant everything FTW!). This idea came from seeing a LEGO and spoon race in my 'research', but altering it to make this one different.
I noticed that the kids were a bit too young to realise that (in the moment of panic when they heard the word "race") it's called "cheating" to hold the giant LEGO brick onto the ladle, but it was fun watching them try, and especially watching Jonathan practice before the party to see if it would be an enjoyable game or not! He walked so slowly and carefully, I was sure the game would take 20 minutes.
- LEGO piñata!
The last game was a LEGO brick piñata. Good friends had come over for dinner the night before, and basically did this part for me (among many other things to set-up and make!). I used an empty tissue box, filled it with lollies, they then wrapped it in yellow paper, attached string to hold it up, and all that was left to do was attach some more yellow bottle lids via a hot glue gun, and voila:
Piñata's are always a great success - even the adults joined in for a bit! :)
This is the queue to the piñata:
Food:
Food is another thing that often turns into too much at a party (and therefore lots of leftovers). Having the party in the afternoon, it was decided that it would be a really simple afternoon tea, with only a few items available.
Which were:
Cheese & fairy bread LEGO sandwiches. Though I was wanting more flavours, it became clear that the spreads literally spread out of the insides when making the circles, which were made using a plastic shot glass upside down. So fairy bread and cheese it was.
LEGO tim tams, mainly for the adults. These were Tim Tams with those Cadbury roll things attached with melted chocolate.
Fruit kebabs (so that there was something healthy!), and rainbow jelly:
I'm totally just making rainbow jelly next time. That was all they really wanted, and the "ohhhhh rainbow jellyyyyy!!" as soon as it came out was priceless.
Probably due to the limited menu, I actually remembered to bring them out this time, unlike at Ben's party.
And since the whole party plan took 1.5 hours, and there was still 30 minutes to fill in before parents arrived back to pick up their children, I was thankful that The LEGO Movie tied in with both the theme of the party and the interests of the guests, so we watched this for about 20 minutes before cutting the cake, and then for another few minutes while the kids were eating cake, and waiting until their parents arrived :)
Cake:
The cake design had changed about 4 times before the party. It was definitely going to be LEGO themed, despite Jonathan wanting a Hulk cake (perhaps to match the Hulk jellies I'd made for him to take to school on his actual birthday), claiming that "Hulk is a LEGO Marvel Superheroes character".
Though I had originally been planning on making a Good cop/Bad cop cake, I did consider changing it to be Hulk so that he would be happy, then thought of just a basic rectangular LEGO brick, which I would have done, though it didn't really appeal to me as being very "wow."
Oh, the pressure when you have anxiety!!
But in the end, due to extreme exhaustion and an increasing lack of time, Husband assured me that whatever I wanted to make, Jonathan will love, because he loves cake, and he won't remember what he initially asked for when it's brought out anyway.
So the final cake was... *drum roll*
A really simple buttercream LEGO head, with melted dark chocolate as the eyes and mouth:
And Husband was right - Jonathan loved it :)
And so did we, as it was kinda breakfast/recess/dessert for the following 4 days after the party. Why did I make it so big again?? Oh yeah. Because I have anxiety, and was worried it wouldn't feed everyone at the party.
But it did, and was probably big enough to feed the guests' family and friends, all of our family and friends, our neighbours, the postman, and distant relatives, too.
Thank you so much to everyone who came and celebrated with my littlest boy.
Happy 5th birthday Jonathan!!
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