You're not surprised, right? :)
Thomas got to have a friend party this year, and a Lego theme was chosen way back in June when I was stuck in bed... and planned the whole thing.
For invitations I knew I wanted to somehow incorporate photos of his Lego minifigures. Shutterfly sent me an offer for 10 free cards, so that was what I decided to do. I had fun taking some shots of his favorite little toys. Quite frankly, the $5.99 shipping for these was quite a bit more than I have spent on invites before, but they turned out cute and were great quality.
And of course there was a birthday shirt. Involving 8 Lego minifig's for a new 8 year old.
For decorations we put some Duplo (since they're bigger I thought that visually they'd look better) in mason jars for balloon weights. We also set up the Duplo castle stuff on the school cubbies.
The girl made the '8' sign. We also hung our traditional birthday buntings and got out all of our Lego books.
Sharpie-drawn faces on the yellow cups livened the table up a lot. We went with cupcakes again (with circle-punched photos for the toppers). I thought the Lego Creator gameboard made a cool centerpiece.
Also I thought it would be cool to make a Lego baseplate inspired table runner. A marker cap dipped in green acrylic paint stamped on green cotton did the trick. I did think about ironing it... and didn't. ;)
My kids all did some Duplo stamping as well, to make wrapping paper!
The goodie bags were minifig inspired as well (sharpies are cool).
In the 'racing room' we made up a ramp the morning of the party. A folding table from the basement (half-folded) with cardboard duct-taped to the end and painter's tape to make lanes. I dug out the checkered flag bunting from Thomas' 4th bday (can't believe I kept it!) and taped it on the sides and we were good to go.
When the guests arrived they were welcomed by the guest of honor and checked in by his big sister. They had to pick up their official builder's passes.
After I designed these I printed them as photos and trimmed them up. The lanyards I got as a set of 10 on eBay for a couple of dollars. My kids had different versions of these. Thomas' had 'Official VIP Builder's pass' and a star with 'birthday boy' on it. Monkey had 'Official builder's pass & little brother of the VIP' and the girl had 'Assistant Race Coordinator'.
We set up one of our Lego tables and some of our Lego bricks in the living room. The kids grabbed some wheels and got busy building. Some of the racers they made were quite impressive.
I plugged my camera into the TV and played a slideshow of Legoland photos while they were building.
Then they raced!
They would run back to the 'building room' to make improvements and then come back and race some more. We didn't really keep track or anything, just whoever wanted to race raced.
They got star stickers on the back of their badges color-coordinated for places (gold -1st, silver - 2nd, blue - tie) but it was way casual. We did try a little tournament at the end, but they weren't super competitive about it. They just wanted to make cool cars.
After cake and presents we turned on the Clutch Powers dvd, which most of the boys hadn't seen, so it calmed the hyperness down quite a bit. But they kept building and racing until I kicked them out.
The birthday boy made sure everyone got their goodybag, which I forgot to take a photo of the contents of until just now - so it's not quite right.
A lego minifigure (I already threw away all the packaging), a tub of playdoh, a mini postcard from Legoland, fruitsnacks, and a little coloring book. I thought those turned out cute. The cover I printed as a photo.
Inside are little minifig coloring pages I found online.
The party was a success, I think everyone had a great time.
Especially this kid.
I don't know if you can tell or not... ;)
Happy Birthday to my awesome 8yo. You are amazing.
8 is Great!
Oh, and here's an 'after' photo.
Boys.