Simple doesn’t usually describe our birthday party preparation.  My kids have a knack for choosing unusual themes like cardboard boxes and dolphin rescue – themes with no pre-printed plates or ready-made games.

I have always enjoyed this.  It stretches our imagination and causes us to have just as much fun planning the event as we do no the actual day of the party.

My boy loves LEGO so I wasn’t surprised when my little man chose a LEGO party theme.  It seems as if every 8 year old boy on the planet loves to build with LEGO.  What surprised me was how easy birthday planning can be when other people have already done the work for you.  Our only issue was deciding which of the many fun ideas to eliminate.  (Here is our LEGO party pinterest board.  See what I mean?)

LEGO Invitations

We began by cuddling up on the couch one day and browsing the internet in search of the perfect invitation.  It didn’t take long.  A build-your-own invitation seemed like the most fun way to go.  We photocopied the finished product (on the side without the words) so that our guests could have an instruction sheet, and packaged all of the pieces up in a small bag before hand-delivering them.  The kids loved solving their tiny LEGO mysteries!

LEGO Decorations

Decorations were pretty easy too – an afternoon of fun building with the kids, and voila!  LEGO containers, LEGO signs, a few bricks scattered in random places like the soap, and a display of our favorite creations.

By the way, those great mini-fig printables are created by Dorie at Winks & Daisies.  Aren’t they perfect?  The best part is that she shares them with us for free!  Thank you Dorie!

Helpful hint: The mini-figs stand up well if you print them onto card-stock, and the hands come out best if you use a hole-punch for the inside of the grip.  Also, know that they do take a bit of time to cut out, so if you decide to use them plan ahead and get a good movie to watch while your fingers are busy.

LEGO Games

On the day of the party we rolled up all of our rugs and dumped out our giant bin of bricks.  The kids surrounded the heap and spent lots of time in free play.  

Organized games weren’t really necessary, but we broke up the free play with just a few including:

• 1 min building challenges (tallest, widest, roundest, most colorful, etc.)
• Lego, Lego who has the Lego (similar to button, button)
• Brick relay races (similar to egg/spoon races)
• Brickmaster Says (similar to Simon Says – “Brickmaster says use one wheel!”)

LEGO Craft

Our craft was to create our own mini figures.  We used a silicone mold to create clay mini-figs the day before the party, and then used multi-colored sharpie markers to decorate them.  Some of the kids really got into this, and asked to take extra blank figures home.  

LEGO food

My son’s birthday menu rarely varies; pizza or lasagna.  This was a lasagna year.

He asked me to try to make it look like a lego brick, so we placed a couple of round slices of cheddar on the top.  It looked great! …until we baked it.  The melty, gooey, yumminess of cheese does not hold its shape well when heated (yeah, I knew that too, but I guess we didn’t think it through).  It still looked yummy, but not really brick shaped.  Oh well, at least he liked his cake.

LEGO goodie bags

My little guy had lots of fun melting our old crayons in the microwave to make the mini-fig crayons (using the same mold from our clay craft and the cake) but if I were to do it again, I would make sure to label the bag “crayons.”  A few of the kids, remembering the candy on the cake, tried to eat their crayons.  Nobody got further than their nose before realizing their mistake, but it would have been nicer if they were labeled.

Each child was sent home with a goodie bag filled with:

• a coloring book (created with the help of google images)
• pencils
• brick shaped erasers
• mini-fig shaped crayons
• brick shaped candy

At the end of the night, while snuggling my newly-turned 8 year old, we played our usual bedtime silly-question game.

“What was the greenest thing you saw today?”

“What the scratchiest thing that happened today?”

And my favorite answer of the night came to the question, “What was the best thing about today?”  His reply, using perfect kid-logic was “dumping the LEGOs all over the floor.”

Yeah, he is just that easy to please.

(FYI – The LEGO gods prefer it to be known that they have not officially endorsed any of our party plans or the use of the LEGO name.  Consider yourself notified.)