Eric's Lego Birthday Party

When people call me "supermom", I usually blush and get all shy, but gosh darn it, today I feel like I just may have been worthy of that title. Today I threw a 5th birthday party for my son and nine of his closest friends, and a grand time was had by all.

Eric has a lot of interests currently - the movie "Cars", all things policeman and fireman-related, and Legos. When I asked him to pick a birthday theme, he chose Legos. There isn't a lot of "Lego themed" stuff in the party supply stores currently, which is surprising to me as it seems to be a perennial favorite. Even the official Lego website doesn't carry party goods, but they do sell a birthday party kit, which we did buy. It included invitations, thank you cards, nametags, and little goody "packs" with Lego building instructions and a "minifig" i.e. "Lego guy".

So since I couldn't just run to Party City, I checked out Pinterest for some DIY ideas. Did I ever hit the motherlode! I've spent quite a lot of time gleaning some great ideas from other "supermoms" who have thrown awesome Lego-themed parties and have been kind enough to share their photos and ideas. I wanted to do all of them, but time just wasn't on my side. So there weren't any Lego Head cake pops, or Lego Head party plates, or even the Lego cookies with MnMs as the "bumps", but I managed to pull together this:

Knowing that our meager house couldn't hold 10 kids and their parents, we opted to use a room at our church. Again, since there's no official Lego-themed party goods, I shopped at Dollar Tree instead. Everything came from there - all decorations (except the plain balloons which came from Tribouts Party Supply in town), the plates, cups, napkins, etc. I think all together it looked great! I especially like the "preschool sized" tables and chairs we borrowed from the Pre-K Sunday School room. There was minimal spilling which I think is in part to the tables being a comfortable height.

The first half of the party was on the Lil' Tumblers Bus. This is a local version of the national franchise of Tumblebus. Lil' Tumblers comes to Eric's preschool on Mondays and he just loves it. It was an easy decision to rent them out for Eric's party. All of the kids just loved the bus - they were like pigs in slop. It was a big hit.
After the hour on the bus was over, the kids came back inside for cake and snacks. I received a lot of compliments on the cake, which was inspired by numerous Lego-themed cakes that I found on Pinterest.
For the cake, I used three boxes of yellow cake mix and make two 9"x13" cakes (they bake up to measure 8"x12") and two 8"x8" cakes. I cut one of the larger cakes in half lengthwise to make a 12"x12" single layer square. The two 8"x8" cakes made up the middle layer, and from the leftover 4"x12" strip I made the top two 4"x4" layers. I didn't dowel them like a wedding cake - I just slapped them together and iced them up.

The candy Legos were made with Wilton Candy Melts in a Lego-shaped candy mold. I am very fortunate to find a local store that had the molds in stock for $2 each. They are a small fortune on Amazon and eBay. The kids got a kick out of the candy Legos on the cake, which made me happy since I included them in the guests' goody bags.

I also found the ideas for the Lego cheese and crackers, fruit kebabs, and individual carrots and ranch dip cups on Pinterest. I kept beverages simple and offered Hawaiian Punch, lemonade (Eric's fave) and water. Straws were a must-have to use with the party cups for this age group.
Eric's little sister Lucy did pretty well, even though the party coincided with her naptime. She played with some toddler Legos while the big kids were out on the bus. The Legos later became table decorations on the kids' tables.
My party piece de resistance was Eric's Lego shirt. This was another idea I found off of Pinterest. I had done some very simple applique work on a previous project, but nothing of this magnitude. It was not too hard, except for the eyes and mouth - they were so very small I had to hand stitch them down. I did add my own spin to the shirt in that I decided to add Eric's name and age to the back in the style of a sports jersey. I found some striped fabric at Joann's and used a Sharpie to draw the vertical lines so they looked like stacked Lego bricks. It turned out pretty awesome.

I'm really pleased at how it all turned out, even though there were a lot of ideas that I didn't get to try. Lord willing, Eric will have another birthday party, so I'll have another go at it next year!