Lego Party!

William has turned 6!  His long awaited Lego party finally came and we had such a great time. For the prep work, I took all the empty boxes I had been collecting for a month and wrapped them in red, yellow, green and blue paper.  I got Styrofoam from the dollar store and cut circles out to wrap for the Lego bumps.  Then I filled my lanterns with large Mega Blocks and Duplos.  For the Lego Figure Heads I took old animal cracker and pretzel containers and wrapped them in yellow crepe paper streamers.  Then I cut some black vinyl for eyes and a mouth.  I had to free hand but it wasn't a hard as I thought.  I took a real Lego figure as a model and with a Sharpie pen I drew the eyes and mouth and cut it out.  The kids had a great time holding up the head to theirs to look like a Lego guy.

For the birthday banner, I printed out the Lego font "Legothick" from DaFont.com.  The favor boxes were from Oriental Trading.  I got the figures, stickers, pencils, and bouncy balls from Toys R Us.  The block candies I got online from Amazon.

I got paper lanterns from Oriental Trading and made tissue paper pom poms (how to on marthastewart.com).  Then I set the table with Lego 12x12 platforms as placemats.  The cake was a 9 x 13 cake with frosted jumbo marshmallows, sliced in half.  The block candles were from Target.

The party began with lunch.  We had popcorn cones (made from cardstock and stuck onto a thread spool rack), Lego jello, fruit and veggies, Lego cheese and crackers, Goldfish, and pizza cut to look like giant Lego blocks.

Then we headed to the coffee table for some games.  I took a ton of Legos from William's stash and had the kids suck up as many blocks as they could and load them on a paper plate.  The kid with the most after 2 minutes was the winner.  Then we had a tower building contest.  Then we played "Drop the Block into the Jar" game.

After the games we had cake and ice cream.  Then present time.  William got lots of cool stuff.  He couldn't wait to bust into his Angry Birds stuff and Lego Batman set.  After opening presents, I handed out small Ziplock sandwich bags and let them go to town on the treat bar.  For the backdrop I wrapped two foam boards taped together with wrapping paper.  I made Lego sugar cookies, Skittles, M&M's, chocolate squares, licorice, and vanilla Lego shaped candies (Make a Mold melting wafers) made from molds I bought on Amazon (also used to make the jello).  They got to fill their bags to take home and each got a favor box.

 
I believe a good time was had by all.  Even though I had a lot of fun putting this party together, I'm a little "Lego'd" out for a while!  Happy birthday, William!

Cousin Day and Signal Bay

We made a quick trip to the Candland house for a fun cousin get-together.  We headed out to Signal Bay, a small water park that's perfect for 2-8 year olds, but even the older kids had a good time.  William ran off with his buddy, Ryan and I rarely saw him the rest of the time.  He loved being big enough to go with the older kids to the lazy river and rope crossing pool.  I had to keep my eye on Charlotte every second.  I mean the girl is fearless!  She kept wanting to go under water, not understanding that she cannot breathe down there.  She LOVED the water slides!  She kept me on my toes going from one slide to the next.  I had to be there at the bottom to make sure she could get back on her feet.  I didn't need to help her at all getting on and going down.  Her enthusiasm was so fun to watch!  It was a great, although short, trip.

Cake Class: Session 2

I finished the second session of the Wilton cake decorating class at Michaels.  For the last day of class we were to decorate a cake using the new techniques we had learned all month.  Unfortunately my cake didn't turn out as good as it did for the first session.  I had prepared, the night before, lots of delicate blossom flowers for the bottom border of my cake as well as some roses and primroses for the top.  Let me tell you, working with icing is tricky!  Having the right consistency is crucial!  My icing for the cake was too wet and it didn't crust the way it should (it was also a humid day) so I couldn't smooth it out with a sheet of parchment paper like the pros do.  I also didn't pay enough attention to where I was storing my pre-piped flowers and Charlotte got her hands on a lot of them leaving me no time to replace them.  I had to improvise in class.  Fortunately, I had a bunch of different flowers I had practiced making so I wasn't completely without.  I wasn't really that satisfied with my cake, but it was good enough.  And to make matters worse, my cake carrier failed on the way out of the store and a whole side got smashed!  So here's the picture of my doomed cake.  At least it was delicious!

Notice the smash on the right!

Freedom Festival

The Navy base here held a Freedom Festival for all military personnel and their families.  It was great!  It was a little on the toasty side, being 95+ degrees, but we all had a good time.  There was a barbeque, inflatables, a rock wall, and a few craft centers for kids.  William loved the inflatable obstacle course and Sean rang the bell on the rock wall.  Charlotte loved the bounce house for a while, but then she was happy just running around on the grass and playing on the playground.  Then when it got dark, there was a fireworks show.  This was the first year they held such an event.  I hope it becomes a regular thing.