we celebrated ethan turning 6 by having a little lego party at our house earlier this month! it was so much fun to think of decorations for this one. this was the first party where i had a mantle to decorate, so i was loving filling the space with classic lego colors.
aunt kristie made the adorable lego sign-- she is a sign-makin' machine! brian, my mom, and i made the jumbo legos out of a variety of boxes from our pantry and wherever i could find boxes around the house! some are granola bar boxes, butter boxes, saltine cracker boxes.... and then we taped on cut-down solo cups to make the bumps on the top. brian and ethan went to work spray-painting the boxes, and voila! jumbo legos! from start to finish, it only took a couple of hours. (2 adults constructing boxes while one adult was spray-painting.) i cannot remember if i saw this idea somewhere or thought of it.... but we just went with what we thought would work, and we were pleasantly surprised!
this picture is not really that fabulous, but you get a closer look at the jumbo legos.
and here's the full effect of the party room! i was so happy with how the space worked for the party.
to the right of this picture was the snack table. chips and pretzels were served in a (clean) lego bucket, and the awesome treehouse that ethan and brian made served as our centerpiece on this table. in the other bucket were the kids' party favors-- little lego airplanes or trucks that came in a "lego party pack" box that was on sale and then BOGO 50% off at toys-r-us! i was so happy to find these for such a super deal because legos are not cheap. this was a fast and easy party favor!
just in case you needed another peek at chips and pretzels in a lego bucket...
ethan constructed this fork holder-- it would make a great pencil holder on a child's desk!
my mom made ethan's cake, as usual.... and she did an amazing job constructing this lego cake!
i can't imagine pulling off all the stacking and the icing without making a complete mess.... but my mom did it! it was interesting getting it to my house in one piece, that's for sure. using fondant would've made the bricks look a little more like legos, but i don't like the taste of fondant. so we compromised a tiny bit on the look to get the yummy flavor. it was a win-win in my book! in case you're wondering, the tops of the bricks are (clean) empty tea light containers. they are filled with icing and are turned upside down on the cake. (we found that idea online... genius!)
this still-empty shelf in our foyer was begging to be decorated at the last minute, so our sweet neighbor grace helped me and the kids construct some little creations the day before his party. brian hung the airplanes, which the kids loved. (disclaimer: amelia's sippy cup is not made of legos and was not a part of the decorations.)
grace and i made these little animals-- aren't they cute?! i especially loved the giraffe.
please notice the snail eye... we searched long and hard for that sucker. please don't notice that the snail only has one antenna. i had a bad case of "lego back" and had to give up searching to stand up and stretch!
speaking of "lego back", the legos were set up in the living room. i knew the older kids would mainly just want to play legos, so that was the gist of our party plans. we did play one game (that i'll tell about in a minute), but the kids worked on their lego creations for the majority of the party. i am really curious about what joseph is trying to tell ethan in this picture! it must be super important.
a funny little story.... you can see my grandmother on the left, and brian's grandmother on the right in the picture above. they were trying so hard to carry on a conversation amongst the very loud lego-building children! between the noise of digging through bins of plastic legos and the kids talking and the tile floor, it was a miracle they could hear each other! so seeing this picture again made me giggle. :)
we also had instructions printed out for various simple creations, such as these fun sunglasses!
the younger girls spent most of the time dressing up, playing kitchen, and doing all things princess-y. i peeked in the playroom at one point and saw that grace had taken a break from legos to read to caroline. sweet, sweet friends.
brian gets the credit for the one game we played at ethan's party: the minifig buffet. if you're not familiar with lego vocabulary, the "minifigures" are the coveted little guys that come with some (most?) lego sets. the number of minifigures is a big deal when deciding on a set, according to my 6-year-old and 32-year-old boys! and "minifig" is obviously just short for "minifigure". got it? good.
ethan has lots of little guys, ranging from dwarves to construction men to toy story aliens to star wars stormtroopers. we separated all the parts and organized all the heads, bodies, hats, accessories, etc. together in two little trays. i'm still wondering why we had significantly fewer heads than other body parts...
the kids were to take a part from each section of the buffet to create a funny minifigure.
natalie created a two-headed guy with some strange hair, an anchor, and a suitcase.
i can't tell exactly what caroline made, but i see a farmer/pirate/something or other holding a skillet. :)
and then poor savannah just couldn't bear to mix up woody and jessie . i don't think that's actually jessie's body, but shhhh, don't tell savannah.
here's all the funny minifigs awaiting the birthday boy to pick his favorite.
and cousin karina was the winner! she was so excited that ethan picked her alien farmer with a viking helmet and handcuffs. :) i think it was the handcuffs that won him over! as the winner, she took home an extra little lighthouse party favor.
this game was a hit! after the official contest was over, the kids worked for a while on more creations. and while the big kids' wheels were turning, the little ones were up to no good. here's one of the few moments that sweet noah wasn't out and about exploring! i love this picture of him and kristie.
every time i turned around, amelia looked like this. the chip thief.
but don't worry, she saved room for cake! amelia was actually very upset that we pulled her away from the chip bucket to take this picture. i was glad she managed to muster a little smile. here's our family with our big 6 year old!
the parade of grandparents begins! we are so thankful that they were able to come to the party. we are blessed.
thanks for the awesome cake, gram!
nana and pappy with the birthday boy
papa and my grandma
brian's grandmother was there too, but you'll see her in a minute. :)
blowing out the candle, thankful for 6 happy and healthy years!
he was pretty happy with his cake, don't you think!? i love this smile.
here is the inside of the cake, if you were wondering what it looked like.
my assistant helped me clean out one of the tea light holders. i would be lying if i told you that those little things of icing were not part of my breakfast for the next week.
look at ethan's blue tongue!!
our party guests were busy eating cake... i didn't even dare ask everybody to turn around.
after cake, it was on to presents. ethan had opened our presents that morning (which is usually its own blog post, but not this year. life is crazy busy!) his big present from us was his first BIG lego set... the big police station!
it was lesson in patience to wait until after his party to put this together, but he and daddy thrilled on constructing all the little buildings together later. lego includes so many cute details in these sets! my favorite part of the police station is the line-up for the prisoners... their height is measured in lego bricks instead of feet! ha!
my mom also gave her present to ethan earlier that day.... jonathan park cds. these are worth every penny. jonathan park is a fun, educational, Christian audio drama, and my kids cannot get enough of it! we had to order the 3rd set of cds yesterday because i can just about quote the first 2. :) i overheard ethan quoting their slogan today: "this is our Father’s world! God created it, we can explore it, so live the adventure!"
you'll never guess what most of ethan's presents were.... legos! the boys were so cute crowding around him as he opened every one. joseph was especially excited when ethan opened more legos...
ethan couldn't believe grandma gave him the lighthouse! it is so cool. it comes with a light brick (maybe 2?), and you can turn the light around like a real lighthouse. you can also use the set to build two other things, but it's still a lighthouse for now.
in this picture, it looks like avery is saying, "since this isn't legos, you might not know how to open it! let me help you!"
and see?! i told you brian's grandmother was at the party! :) she gave ethan this hilarious towmater operation game. oh, what they think of these days.
and this was the big surprise....
nana and pappy gave our family tickets to legoland florida! it opens in october, and we cannot wait to go!
i've got to prepare myself for amelia saying, "wook! wegos!" around every corner! ha! well, we had so much fun celebrating our boy. he had all of his lego presents (all not pictured in this post of course) put together in less than a week, with a little help from an older friend and daddy. now we've just got to come up with a better way to organize them all...
happy birthday, ethan! we love you and are so thankful to call you our son!
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