Lego/Angry Birds Birthday

After a loooong procrastination on my part, here is the info on K's 6th birthday party. I didn't take any photos that day (too busy!) and put off getting them from James's phone so I could post them. And, I forgot to ask him to take specific pictures of some of the stuff we did to decorate with the theme. Oh, well.

K decided on a Lego theme a few months before his birthday. However, we didn't find a lot of good stuff for decorating for that, and he saw some Angry Birds plates and napkins that he liked, so we merged the two ideas into a Lego/Angry Birds party! He does love both. And a lot of aspects merge together, as you will see in some of the pictures.

Once again, I got a lot of ideas from Pinterest. Thus, the day before the party I was making a Lego piñata in the dining room! (Note the open laptop next to me for reference.) Got the idea here and here.

And, once again, I was very grateful for an artistic husband who was willing and able to make these cool gift bags.

One thing that is really hard with kids, and in this case parties for kids, is that they want to help. K gets into helping get ready, which is great. I want him to help and be involved in his own day. However, us adults have to try not to get mad at the kids for messing stuff up when we are trying so  hard to make it look good! James made these great bags and then K wanted to add his own art and write the names on the bags. You can see some of K's additions here, but before the party he had completely covered some of the bags with scribbles. We didn't get angry at him, but man is it is hard to bite your tongue after you've worked so hard to make it cool and then it ends up just looking messy!

This is almost the entire group of kids at present time. They were very good and no one tried to open any of K's presents! I love it when kids grow up! (And a look through most of our photos reveals this scene over and over: me surrounded by children!)

The merging of Lego and Angry Birds was best seen here, in our live action Angry Birds game.

My sister had this big set of plastic Legos. They open up to put things in and stack together with the little holes and dents, just like real Legos. So I came up with the idea to stack the plastic Legos, put K's one Angry Bird pig toy into the stack and have the kids throw his Angry Bird stuffed toys (and some other stuffed birds we have) at the whole thing. (For those not acquainted with the AB game, that is the basic idea. Pigs try to hide in "castles" made different materials and then the birds get tossed at the structures until all the pigs are knocked down.) They loved it! Other than some squabbles over position in line, it was great! (The original idea was to do this but this way I got to use Legos too.)

The day was very hot, about 95 degrees, so we were inside and outside the whole time, so there were times to cool off. This next picture shows one of the few shots of the decorative stuff. K and I made utensil and napkin holders out of his Legos. (Look at the front of the picnic table.)

We didn't get any shots of the balloons, though. My sister has helium at her work, so she blew up a bunch of green balloons that James then drew Angry Birds' pigs on and Lego faces. I filled Mason jars with assorted Legos and tied the balloon to them. It was windy that day, so it wasn't too successful outside, but still a good idea!

The finished piñata, I made it pull string because we had a mix of little kids (2-3 year-olds) and bigger kids (6-7 year-olds). It actually worked out that the last string was the one that opened the piñata, so everyone got a turn!

Since the fake tattoos were so popular for S's party, when I found a package of 200 Angry Birds tattoos at Target, I snapped it up! Most of the kids had full tattoo sleeves by the end of the party. :)

I also made another foray into a theme cake. I made two cakes in bread loaf pans, put half a large marshmallow on a toothpick and frosted. My sister was big into Legos years ago and had this big Lego board I was able to use as a platter. Perfect! The colors got a bit blown out in this photo, but I was able to get pretty close to the primary colors of Lego bricks. These were the colors K chose. (The idea for the marshmallows was from a friend, but I came up with the rest myself.)

A little easier to see here. I had to keep the candles in the doorway so the wind didn't blow them out before K could!

Other party fun: 

I spy the Lego Guy. James made a few Lego guy heads out of cardboard that I taped around the house and had the kids run around to find. 

Guess how many Legos in a jar.

We were going to do a Lego building contest, but ran out of time and energy.

Another party note, for anyone else looking for ideas-since we did a piñata, at K's request, we made the goody bags for the kids to fill with piñata goodies and didn't try to get extra stuff. I put goody bag stuff in the piñata, like Lego erasers, candy from the Dollar Store (but the chocolate melted in the heat!), bouncy balls and other little gifts from the Dollar Store and dollar section of Target.

This party was fun, but I think I tried too many ideas at once. The 7th birthday might need to be toned down a bit!