kirstencan

Lego Party Redux

Monkey is all about being unique.  He has never wanted to copy anyone else's (including his brother's) party ideas.  However, my party planning mojo was lacking this year, and he wanted too many guests to really pull off the mad scientist theme we'd been talking about for a while.

Finally he agreed that a Lego party would be awesome - especially for his group of friends.  But it wouldn't be exactly like his brother's party back in the day.  It really suits Monkey so well, as he is a SuperFan and aspires to be a Lego designer one day!

Doesn't hurt that we've done this theme before so I knew it would be easy!

He helped me stage the invite photo op.  There was a moment of worry when 'his hair' piece (the one that looks kinda like his mop) couldn't be found immediately.  But it surfaced.

We made minifigure buntings using cardstock and stickers (stickers from this book we already had).

And some cardstock bricks with my circle punch.  Hard to see in this photo.

We made builder badges, and used more minifig stickers on the goody bags.

We displayed some duplo creations that my boys put together.

Cupcakes again, but this time we topped them with chocolate minifigures we made!

As guests arrived, they were pretty occupied with the train setup. 

See how Monkey set up the 'bad guy' so he will get knocked into the bridge?  That was replayed over and over.  Boys. 

We had separated all the wheels we could find from our lego stash and everyone grabbed a pair and started building.  This was the extent of my activity planning. :)

A sheet was spread on the floor instead of using the lego table this time - figured it would work better with more guests.

We setup the 'ramp' again and the boys did test runs and races.

Very casual and open-ended.  It fit the boys different personality types.  Some wanted to build fast and race, some wanted to work forever on their designs and didn't care about racing so much.  Some wanted to just run the races, and some made mars rovers and stuff instead of cars.  Several boys mixed lego with duplo pieces to see how that would go, too.

We had the Lego Movie soundtrack playing (heard 'Everything is Awesome' about a million times, but I kind of love it), Legoland photos on slideshow mode, and Lots of lego books out to peruse.*

Oh yeah, on the mantel was a photo of (little!) Monkey with a mascot at Legoland, and a selection of his mixels, MBA sets, and other things he felt like displaying.

About halfway through, we paused for cake and snacks (chips, grapes, water - pretty low key) and presents.  Then back to building, this time with the Lego Movie on.

Here are just SOME Of the boys' awesome creations:

They had tons of fun, but eventually I kicked them out. :)

We sent them home with goody bags including m&m's (chosen for their color mostly!) with a little Benny tag I made for top.

Also little souvenir photos!  We printed out wallet size photos from our trips to Legoland, and everyone got a few.

I whipped up this cute Lego Movie quote. 

(I think this is the first time we've done photos/prints in goody bags - I hope they go over well!)

Oh, and we made plenty of chocolate minifigs, so some were packaged up for the bags, too.  Some are cookies and creme (thanks, half-price Easter chocolate!).

Some glo bracelets and ring pops rounded out the goody bags.

The boys had fun!  That is the biggest party we've thrown, but I think it went well. 

Two things about 'boy' parties, though:

    You will have to vacuum at least twice.

    There will be a distinct 'boy' smell.

 

*After we were setup, my husband looked around and said "Lego should be paying us."

 

Birthday Week

A year older this week (note the period instead of an exclamation mark.  Partly because I woke up with a BAD BACK on my birthday.  Determined to feel older I guess.

Here's a random post of some goodies from my fun week.

I snagged some flowers bound for the trash from my friend's daughter's wedding that The Girl and I helped with last weekend.  They brightened my counter for much of the week!

My birthday linens, which go with my Christmas linens.  I'm not one of those people who doesn't want 'house stuff' for gifts!

My kids made me cream puffs!  The Girl did the pastry, and Monkey stirred the pudding for almost an hour.  Beautiful and yummy!

My visiting teachers are craftier than yours. ;) (This 'card' was actually flat in the envelope and popped open!)

Not pictured:  out to lunch with a friend, and another friend's AMAZING caramel brownie concoctions that were delivered WARM.  Dude.  (So many treats this week!) And a few other surprises.  Spoiled!

I actually like when some gifts come late (or are ordered with gift cards) because I had little surprises for a few days after my actual birthday! 

Now it's off to movie night, and I believe my family is taking me out to dinner tomorrow, since this week was so busy.  Yay, it just keeps coming! :)

Dragon Party

So, the Redhead is twelve. 

That's a post in and of itself, but so. many. thoughts. about that... another time maybe.

Let's focus on his party, shall we?

Twelve is a little tricky because the party can't be to 'party-ish'.  He loved his last party and it went well, but honestly it was a bit much for him.

We settled on a How To Train Your Dragon (2) movie and pizza party.  Easy and more chill.

But we can still have fun on a few details, right? ;)

I found editable movie ticket invites (perfect!) here.  I printed them 2 tickets per 5x7 at Costco.  I made little envelopes for them, the Redhead helped me write their names (also in viking runes), and I carved a dragon stamp for them.

I swear a good invite adds TONS to your party. Ups the excitement and I think more people show.  Also I think I just like making them. :)

These awesome flags were printed off at the copy shop.  I had pinned some ideas and when the Redhead saw the flags he went 'Wow!'  I think they look awesome.  I scribbled out a paper viking hat for his photo, too.

Real viking hats don't have horns, I know.  BUT they are great visuals. ;)

Easy viking-rune-inspired bunting.

The Redhead LOVES the How to Train Your Dragon books (sadly many of our guests didn't know there was a series that the movies were inspired by), and I made a welcome sign based on the cover graphic.

I glued together this papercraft Toothless the night before - he was a hit.  I also picked up a bunch of little dragons as favors (and when you buy the whole box, you get to keep the box to display them in - score!).

We just happen to be studying viking times in history, so painting shields was a no-brainer.  History + party decor!

#homeschoolFTW

I cut out a couple of black 'Night Furies', and the kids wanted one hanging.  It is hard to photograph, but actually looked cool.

We settled paper Toothless on a stack of HTTYD books - the other stack of books had a little toothless toy on it.

I rolled butcher paper down the table, stamped it with the dragon stamp I made and one with some runes (and swedish fish were included because Toothless loves fish). 

See that stack of green napkins?  No one used them of course.  Did I mention I covered my couches with sheets?  Cuz I definitely did. ;)

Not pictured:  5 pizzas and 3 bottles of soda.

He chose donuts for cake - his sister did that once, too.

His friends were awesome, nice, and goofy.  He was happy and handled everything awesomely. 

I think twelve's gonna be good.

This girl

This girl turned fourteen last month.  I didn't forget, just didn't document it here.

She is pretty awesome.

She's grown up so much the past year, I can't wait to see what she does next year!

Happy belated birthday to my amazing daughter.

Birthday Shirts!

I almost didn't make Monkey a birthday shirt.  But he really wanted one.

So, the night before his big day, I got it done.  Thanks to my better half, who is much more detail-oriented, who carved the stencil for me!

It's the korean number 9, or ahop as they say in taekwondo class.  Apparently there are different ways to write it, but I went with the one they say.  Don't tell me if I'm wrong.

I like how it turned out!  It's metallic silver.

BTW, I went to target for his shirt, grabbed a size L, and when I got home I was surprised that they had apparently changed their boy shirt sizes!  It's always been S(5-6), M (7-8), L(10-12), and XL (12-14).  BUT this shirt was a L(12-14).  What's with that, Target?  Good thing he likes it, it will fit him for a long while!

Anyway, gathered together my collection of handmade birthday shirts, it is fun to look back!

Monkey's second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth

Redhead's fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth

The Girl's eighth, ninth, eleventh

(That was a lot of links to make!  Hopefully I didn't mess any up...)

Girl's 7th she had a pretty birthday dress, her 10th she had a rad 80's outfit that I did NOT make.  Her 12th I did make her a birthday skirt?  Can I make her one for her 14th coming up?  (14th!   That seems so old!)

Hmm, I used to applique a lot, but definitely turned to stenciling more.

So many birthdays documented - love it!

My random monkey

In honor of my baby turning nine, which was almost two weeks ago (eight years later, my blogging skills are lacking, yeah?), I thought I'd share with you a few of his random thoughts.

This kid is the most random I have ever met.  He comes up with these gems in the middle of a conversation, in the car, when he's supposed to be doing math, or while (the rest of us are) eating.  Completely out of the blue.

His Dr. said there's definitely something special going on up there.  Not sure what he meant by that...

Anyway, I've been trying to jot down some, missing MANY, and here are a few favorites (a few of these I tried to turn into cheesy Jack Handy style Deep Thoughts for a friend's bday):

What if someone had a fireball-shooting tongue ring?  They would not want to let it fall into enemy hands.

Do you think a praying mantis would eat a honey nut Cheerios like a donut?

If they would have had mustard gas in the civil war, it would have been a sign that technology was moving really fast, and we might have had flying cars by now!

I wish I could control my personal gravity.

I still think its hard to think of what qualifies as the sky.

Would it be more environmentally friendly to have a smoke screen made out of flies instead of smoke? Like if you had a jar full of flies and opened it up so they all swarmed out? It would also be healthier.

When you were a kid did elevators have as many buttons?

There are two things I would really like to invent:  an exhaust powered car, so that would stop pollution and global warming... or at least slow it down, and a book making machine that reads your brainwaves and writes it down as a book.  So you can be doing something else and writing a book at the same time.

Do you think it would be cool if I could control my size?  And the size of anything I'm touching?

What if a dollar cost 156 cents?

What if there was a mirror down here and a mirror up in my room and a system of mirrors in between so that I could see everywhere?  If you were doing something you didn't want me to see I wouldn't look, and if you were watching something scary I would cover the mirror with a cloth.

If I look at clouds for too long, I get hungry.

......

So.  I'm thinking his grown up career should be 'Person in think tank of eccentric billionaire'.  Or a mythbuster?

Whatever he does, it's gonna be AWESOME.

 

 

ps. The monkey/post office and the fireball tongue ring are my faves!

Eleven

This year I was extremely grateful that it wasn't a Friend Party Year for this kiddo.  And that we had the reusable decorations on hand already and I found 4 Happy Birthday balloons in the junk drawer.

And washi tape to brighten up the only non-Christmas wrapping paper I have on hand.

I was also super grateful that I was like 90% better yesterday (woo!) and could go out and celebrate my amazing redhead.  Who is now 11.  Eleven seems so big.   Eleven means a BOY scout shirt instead of a cub scout shirt.

But eleven year olds still like mud pies (Hoth printables from here).

Really, there was Lego.  And a new season of Clone Wars to watch.  He was totally happy.

(He was only 3 when I started this blog!)

Thirteen

A couple months ago I was chatting with a friend who has two teenaged daughters.  She was telling me how hard it was, how emotional they were, etc.

My girl has always been fairly dramatic (oh, the pouts!), so I've always been worried about the onset of puberty making that worse.  I have NO patience for hormonal/selfish/emotional behavior.

But you know what?  This girl has been awesome.  Believe it or not, LESS emotional than before.  Still passionate about dance, with fun, geeky interests (also good taste in birthday restaurants).

I was telling this to my friend and she said 'You go inside and get on your knees RIGHT NOW and thank God.'  It was funny. 



Right then the girl got home from an activity, so I gave her a big hug and thanked her for being awesome (later I thanked God).

She says she doesn't want a typical teenaged mother/daughter relationship.  She wants to have more of a Lorelai/Rory relationship (yes, She's been watching Gilmore Girls).  I'm okay with that.



So here we go, into the teenage years - I'm really okay with it.  She'll only get better.
Happy Birthday to my girl (who had just turned six when I started this blog!).

A Calvin and Hobbes Party!

Because he's SUCH a Calvin.  And he is reading my complete set (I've given up trying to keep those away from the kids) as I type this.  I grew up with Calvin, too, so it makes me happy.

And because there are a total of like TWO Calvin and Hobbes birthday parties I could find online, I'm posting lots of details for anyone interested.  Man, my kids like obscure birthday themes!

We did a quick photoshoot, basically dressing him kinda like Calvin, and sending him down a hill in a wagon a bunch of times.

And making Calvin-esque sneaky faces.

Oh, and plush Hobbes didn't get done in time for the party, darn it.  But you've gotta let stuff go, right?

I stencilled the stripes and Calvin silhouette for his birthday shirt.

This year we held the party at our church.  LOTS of room to play.

 I blew up a Calvin image (much like the 80's posters from this party) but I wasn't too careful putting them together...

I wish I'd gotten a closeup of the table - they had cute red with white polka dot paper straws, sparkly (annoying) noisemakers, and comics lining the table.  It was fun.

The banners are circles of Calvin pictures and newspaper triangles.

Like this:

One corner of the room was the Box Corner.  I've been saving them...  A few were turned into time machines and transmogrifiers.

Other activity setups (click to see anything bigger):

Newspaper hats, Calvin's comic corner, dinosaur tattoos,

make your own snowgoons, knock stuff over, Spaceman Spiff's paper spaceships.

And then we just needed guests.

Let's go back to the food table...

I totally forgot bowls for the 'tiger tails' and pretzels!  Classy.  Did the boys care?  Nope.

Also I think The Girl may have been offended that I made a G.R.O.S.S. sign.  But I had to, right?  While they were eating cake the boys had a club meeting. ;)

I also forgot to stick in the Calvin cupcake toppers I made!  Darn it!

We had comics on the food table as well as prints from our little shoot.

Chocolate eight pops, cupcakes (sans toppers, boo!), 'tiger tails' (cheetos), pretzel sticks, and...

Chocolate frosted sugar bombs (cocoa puffs)!  Adorable printable transmogrifier papercraft found here.

I had so much fun making the Eiffel Tower chocolate pops last year I thought I'd do some again.  Visually they look good on a table, too.  But red and white?  Was more Halloween-y than I had intended... a few were kept in reserves because they were a bit too 'dripping blood-ish.'

 

Also I forgot my floral foam blocks to stick them in.  Luckily the Box Corner had a big piece of styrofoam in it!  But then they didn't stand up straight, oh well!

Okay, remember all those activites I set up?  That was a Just In Case kinda thing.  Here's what they did:

(Please click to see that one bigger because my boy dressed as Calvin wearing swimming goggles running around in a time machine box kinda slays me).

They played with those boxes.  No organized games, and while a few did get hats, a few dino tattoos, and a few knocked the cups over (with a balloon or their hand while zooming by), the boxes WERE the party.  Well, boxes and treats.   And that was awesome.

They drew, cut, punched, transmogrified, chased, hid, sneaked, ran and ripped.

Not your typical party game!

Let's talk goodie bags.

I wanted to make sugar cookie favors (again (and again)) but the kitchen thingy we're doing didn't allow.  As it is, my daughter made the cupcakes at Grandma's kitchen.  So I made a list of some of Calvin's favorite things, and whipped up some little Calvin pins (fun to break out the button maker!) as well. All tucked into little white craft paper bags with red/white tape to cute it up.  (side note:  I found teeny packs of playfoam - the boys LOVE playfoam, and it is a necessity for the redhead - on amazon for cheap!)

The boys had fun, especially the birthday boy, yay!  A proper celebration for an eighth birthday?  Check and check.

Next up:  the baptism celebration!  Oh goodness.

Eight

Today's a big day for our littlest (not so little!) guy.  His big 8th birthday.  Today he has a belt test at taekwondo followed by family dinner at a restaurant he picked.  His party is Saturday, His baptism is a couple of weeks after.  AND this morning he got to dump his booster seat.

Holy moly my baby is grown up!

We took a minute (not more than that, really) Saturday to dress him appropriately and send him down a hill in that wagon a few times for his invitation.  Do you know who he is?

Tigger was a stand in, because Hobbes hasn't happened yet.  Hopefully by Saturday...

And 7 years ago, on Easter Sunday, we celebrated his first birthday!  Wow.  Soon after I started this blog, so this is what he looked like way back then.


My baby!  *sniff*

Happy birthday to the silliest 8 year old I know, who will ALWAYS be my baby.