My darlingest oldest child turned six a few weeks ago. Sniff sniff. And he's starting KINDERGARTEN next week! It's the beginning of the end! He's practically graduating and leaving me tomorrow!
But I digress.
We threw him a rockin' Lego party this year. I have a policy on small children's birthday parties: cute, fun and SIMPLE. So his party was not the elaborate toast of Pinterest. But it was cute, it was fun, and it was just the right amount of simple for me.
To start with, here is the invitation:
We built that 6 ourselves from my son's extensive Lego collection, then I photographed it on our kitchen table with no special lighting. Brightened up the colors a bit in Photoshop, then added the text.
Notice we planned on an hour and a half. That's 'cause last year's water party was two hours and we were DYING by the end of it. Kids required entertaining far more than they did when we were little, I'll tell ya that! :P
Anyway, we had just a few activities. Building and racing cars. Cake and ice cream. Opening presents. Pinata.
I ordered a random bulk mix of Legos and 10 sets of wheels on eBay. The random mix was terrific. (The wheels were perfect too, exactly as pictured.) My boy and I sorted out the pieces into categories (double wide flat, single wide flat, double wide regular, single wide regular, curved slanted pieces, bigger flat pieces, miscellaneous transparent pieces) and then the day of the party, each kid got a set of wheels and then they each got to be creative and use the random pieces to build their cars.
My husband built a simple but awesome track out of scrap MDF and particle board we had in the garage, leftover from various other building endeavors. So as the kids finished, they raced their cars, and once everyone was done, we had our official races.
And of course, everyone needed a first place ribbon (cut from this Silhouette file, stamped in the middle with this Blue Ribbon set from Stampin' Up!, and adhesive bar pins added to the back
).
Then we had cake
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| Yes, I know my icing job is lumpy and bumpy. But the kids all identified it as a Lego nonetheless! |
and ice cream and opened presents.
Last, but not least, the kids took turns whacking a pinata in the front yard as parents began to arrive.
Cute, fun and simple.
Last but not least, I firmly believe in sending thank you notes. And sending them the old fashioned way.
Printed these off on cardstock and cut them into postcards (cheaper postage, you see! Perfect for a kid's thank you notes). My son wrote their names (I wrote their addresses), he wrote Thanks (then I wrote the message he dictated) and he signed his name. Excellent team work. :)