lovey dovey

I love my family!

I am a wife, mother of three beautiful boys, and a middle school administrator. At times, I have mistakenly tried to achieve perfection in each role. These attempts always fail miserably because there is no such thing as a perfect wife, a perfect mom or a perfect worker! I decided to relinquished my pursuit of perfection…I can say without guilt that my shortcomings are vast and my mistakes many. Embracing my imperfections and turning my life over to God has been freeing and led to a sweeter life. I found that when I quit trying so hard, that SOMETIMES things magically fall into place and for brief moments I am “Supermom.”







Sunday, January 2, 2011

Ryan's 9th Birthday - Lego Party




For Ryan's 9th birthday party, he wanted a Lego theme. Ryan LOVES Legos. He lives and breathes Legos.  When he grows up he wants to be a Lego engineer.  He always amazes us with the Lego creations he comes up with. 

For the Lego theme, I had some good ideas and decided to get more from the internet.  There were lots of great ideas I found , so I can't claim all of the ideas below as my own.  I wanted somehow to incorporate a quote that talked about the world and creating/building.  I found a great one by Ralph Waldo Emerson from his essay entitled, "Nature".  It served as the inspiration quote for the decorations. 

I took the quote and added some Lego clipart I found on Google images and printed it on cardstock.

My camera is about to kick the bucket, so my pictures from the party are TERRIBLE.  Blurry and weird...sorry! 

Since Jaron's football team was deep in the playoffs, we were finding it difficult to find a time when he wasn't working to have the party. We squeezed the party in from 6:30-8:30 p.m. on Wednesday the day before Thanksgiving, just in time for Jaron to walk off the practice field to be there for the celebration. Yea! I was glad that Jaron's mom, Manna, and Paul were there to help me get ready for the party and corral the boys.

Ryan selected Creamy Tacos as his birthday meal. It is a really simple recipe from Jaron's mom and it is so yummy. Email me and I'll send it to you.

We decided to try cake pops again. I made red Lego bricks and yellow Lego men heads.  The Lego bricks turned out pretty cute. Cannon made a Lego box that we filled with Styrofoam to put the pops in. The Lego men were sort of strange looking. I figured out that I'm trying to make them too big. Then, disaster struck at about 12:30 a.m. before the party....the edible marker did not work to make the faces! Yikes. I almost panicked, but decided the bricks were cute enough that if I had to go w/o Lego men that it would be fine.  But at the last minute, I decided to use the decorating of the Lego men as a party activity. I melted some chocolate and let the kiddos design the face of their Lego man. It turned out to be one of the favorite activities!

The red Lego brick cake pops were made with the same recipe I used for my farm animal cake pops.  I shaped them into rectangles and dipped them in red Wilton candy melts.  I put some red cake icing in a Ziploc bag, cut the tip of the bag and piped six dots on the rectangles.  The kiddos loved them.

In addition to cake pops, we had a candy buffet.  Skittles, M&Ms, cherry sours, sour tape, pretzel rods dipped in candy melts, animal crackers drizzled in candy melts, etc. all in bright colors were displayed in Mason jars.  Kim, Jaron's mom brought some cute Lego cookies that went perfectly with the decor!  The candy also served as party favors at the end of the party.  The kids just loaded up their brown paper bag and had a sweet treat to take home. 


I used a broken globe from a thrift store that I bought for fifty cents, some old maps, a quilt from Jaron's Maw maw, a Lego book, the Lego cake pop box Cannon had made, and the various candies as the decorations for the cake table. 









We used a Lego man holding a cup as a candle holder.  We saw this on another website and thought it was super cute!

The party favor bags table had some of Ryan's Lego creations displayed.

I found a Lego brick background and used a Lego font I downloaded from the internet that had little Lego men to spell out "Happy Birthday, Ryan".  Sorry the picture isn't better. 
Lillian, my soon to be sister-in-law, couldn't make the party, but a couple of nights before she helped me make Lego stamped shirts for Jaron, the boys and myself to wear to the party and a Lego stamped table runner.  We took a big Lego block, dipped it in paint and stamped the square part first.  Then turn the Lego over and stamp the dot side in the paint and stamp it on the shirt or paper. 




I used binder clips in bright colors to hold the table runner down over the vinyl tablecloth.


On the main table, where the kids played some of the games, I used the top of an old Lego table, a Lego game board and a bowl full of Legos. 


For the birthday banner, I punched holes in Lego game cards and ran ribbon through it.  On the backs of every other card, I glued a UNO card w/a nine on it, since it was Ryan's ninth birthday.  At the ends of the banner to hold the corners down, I hot glued dominos with a nine combination. 





On the front door, Ryan made a nine out of Legos on a Lego board.  Lillian spelled his name out of Legos and we connected the two and used binder clips to tie ribbon to it. 


I found lots of good Lego party activities on the internet.  Some of the games we played are below:

1. Guess how many Lego men were in the jar.  We filled a jar full of Lego men and had the party goers write their guess on a piece of paper.  The kid with the closest guess won a prize.  Congratulations, Chase! 





2. Create your own Lego man. (I found a blank Lego man template online at http://www.starwars.com/kids/activity/draw/f20060830/img/3.jpg

3. Find the brick Lego Maze. (I found a maze online and changed it to have Ryan's name on it.  Sorry I can't remember the website.)

Ryan making his Lego man.


Drew used a Lego man from the jar as his inspiration.

4. Lego Light Saber Race. (Kids had to balance a Lego on the tip of a light saber and do a relay race.)

Chase demonstrated his steady hand at the race that proved near impossible!

5. Lego Tower Challenge. (In pairs, kids built a tower in two minutes.)

Quentin's team won with their creative placement of the tower on his head, therefore, winning the tallest tower.

Ryan and his team work hard on building their tower.

Parker deciding he wanted a piece of the Lego building action!  How cute does he look in his Lego onesie and red Converse shoes!


6.  Customize your own Lego cake pop.  This was such a blast!


Ryan

Miss Kim, Wesley's mom wins the award for the cutest Lego woman!

Drew can't wait to eat his Lego cake pop!

Katie worked hard on her cute Lego woman.

Eli's Lego man had eyebrows.  :)

Quentin's Lego man waws wearing a cap and a frowny face.

Cannon dipped his whole Lego man in chocolate and said it had poop on its head.  Go figure, Cannon would say something like that! 

What big eyes your Lego man has! -Chase

6. Create Your Own Treat Bag. (The cake table was filled with different candies that the kids were allowed to stuff their treat bags with).


The noise level was CRAZY! There were seven little boys all running around screaming and yelling. It was a great time.  After the party, Ryan was super sweet and thanked me for the party. He said it was so fun and that he loved it. I thought that was really cool for him to thank me w/o being prompted. What a good boy!


The whole family in their Lego wear.  Thanks for being a good sport, dad!

Ryan, Happy Birthday.  We love you and think you are the best nine year old in the whole world! 




1 comment:

  1. Ryan is absolutely gorgeous. I have the hi res close up shot of Ryan on display life size in my room in one of my large digital picture frames. I just love admiring his gorgeous face and good looks. The picture is clear and sharp and he appears to be right in front of me when I am admiring this gorgeous little boy. I love to lean close and kiss him on the mouth and lips. The closeness and intimacy of having this gorgeous little beauty to admire and kiss on at will is absolutely wonderful, especially late in the evening when I turn down the lights for bed. Eli on the other hand is kinda goofy looking, but at the same time he is cute. I have his picture on display life size in my room. Sometimes when I am admiring him I will lean forward and mouth kiss him as well. He is goofy looking so sometimes when my mouth and lips and tongue are pressing against his mouth and lips I start laughing and have to pull my mouth off his and stop laughing before I can resume the intimacy. I know once I was really starting to get into his good looks and had a very passionate session with him, so he is cool to have around as well.

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