Noah’s Lego Celebration

Usually Noah prefers to have his party on his birthday, regardless of what kids can come, since it is during summer vacation.  In the past I have accommodated him and it has always worked out.  But this year we had to change plans since his two very good friends were moving to the States as soon as school got out.  We wanted to have at one more last bash with them.  It wouldn’t have been a happy birthday without their silliness.We miss you so much, Tim and Ben!

He is really into Lego these days, and so it was pretty much a no-brainer that he would have a Lego party this year.  Especially after I found so much cute stuff on the internet.  Of course, the easiest thing would have been to take everyone to the nearest Lego store, paid them money, and let them do it all.  So jealous of those who have that option available.

Anyway, I made up some cute invitations that looked like Lego blocks.  They were green, since that is Noah’s favorite color.  And no, I can’t seem to find a pic of them anywhere.  The older kids were a huge help in getting things ready for this party, most especially Nicholas.  I really appreciate all the work they do, happily, for their siblings when it’s their party time.  I know part of it is they realize that they will get the favor returned when it’s their turn for a party.  And part of it is just because they are awesome!

Nicholas made this fun sign that we had up for the entire party. And several of them helped to build this cool serving bowl just for the party.  (Don’t worry I washed the Legos first.)

There were also a Lego themed birthday banner.  Originally, I wanted to wrap boxes in colored paper, suspend them with fishing line from the ceiling and have hanging Legos.  But I ran out of time.  And no one missed them since they only existed in my head. 🙂  And there were certainly plenty of actual Legos lying around to provide the perfect ambiance.

I had gotten several fun ideas for party games off the Internet, including some right from the official Lego site.  However, they all required mass quantities of Lego.  And I couldn’t easily buy them off of Ebay for a song, because again, I live in the wrong part of the world.  BUT we do have an awesome second hand store in the next town over, and so I went and asked her several months in advance to please let me know when she got in loose Lego so I could buy it all off of her.  She happily obliged, and I was able to pick up a huge plastic bag full of lots of different pieces, plus several mini-figures, for a reasonable price.

Nicholas divided them up by color into several bowls which we placed on the table for all the games.  I passed out cards with the name of an object, that the kids then had to build using the available Lego.  They had originally 5 minutes, but we ended up letting them have 10 because no one was finished.   Some of the objects were; a robot, a house, a dog, a chair, etc.  Then they put their creations on the table next to the paper that said what it was supposed to be.  We all walked around and decided which one we thought was the best.  That kid got a prize of his choice of a mini-figure.  They all felt like winners though when I announced that they could take their creations home with them to keep forever.  I handed out the Lego treat bags that I had picked up at Legoland the week before, and they all put them inside.  They had tags with their names on them, so no mix ups!

We also played a game where we used two long Legos connected with a rubber band to make chopsticks.  You used the Lego chopsticks to pick up other Lego pieces.  Each kid had a minute to see how many they could pick up and put into a bowl.  Again, the winner got his/her choice of mini-figure.

Then everyone got to choose two mini-figures to take home and they could use one for the Lego obstacle course.  (I told you, I was able to buy a crazy amount of Lego.)  The girls had helped me set it up.  I provided them with a few ideas, and they did the rest.  The kids had to make their mini-figure do the obstacle course, and it was hilarious watching them.

First they rode down the inside of a long wrapping paper tube, then they had to sit in a little boat while the child blew on the sail to carry them across the “lake”. We had to reconstruct the sail after the first attempt proved to be utterly inadequate.  But after that it worked great! Then they had to put the Lego man on a spoon and carry him across the room ,without dropping him, to the mini-trampoline.  They had to set him on the trampoline and bang with their hands until he had completed three jumps.  Then the best bit, they had to climb on the mattress and ride down the stairs with their guy. This is a favorite past time of all Noah’s friends that come to play , so I knew it definitely needed to be included in the party.  Most stairs in Swiss apartments/houses aren’t conducive to such a thing as they are spiral and way too narrow.  But ours just scream out to be slid down.

From there the mini-figures hopped on a wooden train and rode the tracks down the hallway to another kind of track.  This one had a little Lego car their mini-figure had to get in and ride to the end.Then the final obstacle, the zip line!It was so fun watching the little guys slide down.  Many children wanted to do it more than once.

While the girls supervised the kids during the obstacle course, I was in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on the cake.  I baked several cakes in my mini-loaf pan and then cut them to be more or less rectangle in shape.  I had several different colors of icing and two large bags of Smarties so I would have enough of the correct matching colors.  Noah loved it, as did the kids, and I thought it turned out pretty cute as well.Smiles like this are exactly what I like to see at a party.  What a sweetie. I had bought red contact paper to make large circles to cut out and put on the table to make it look like a giant Lego, but again, it ended up being unnecessary as the table was usually full of real Lego as it was.  The cute green cups and plates came from Ikea, and my awesome helper lives near there as well. 🙂Her daughter is the one with the cute red headband, and since it is a bit of a drive, she offered to stay and be a second set of hands.  It was wonderful!  She helped pour drinks, pass out cake, clean up messes and gave me a grown up to chat with when the kids were otherwise occupied.  Thank you, Cathy!

Oh, the drinks.  That was the best part!  While at Legoland the first time, Chris had bought a Lego block mold.  I used it to make lots of red ice cubes flavored with sirup, a Swiss version of Koolaid, kind of.  It is a fruit based thick liquid that you add a bit of water to to make it less concentrated and drinkable.  When added to the Sprite it not only made it a pretty color, it tasted great as well.  The kids loved the Lego ice cubes and kept asking for more and more of them.  Good thing I had made a big bag full!

After cake we opened presents, using a pencil to spin around to determine who would open what.  We tried to use a Lego piece, but it didn’t spin very well. He ended up with a very nice pile of loot, indeed.  I am always amazed by the generosity of friends to my children.  And I definitely try to repay it back at their own parties.

Afterwards I had everyone come back to the table for some more Lego building.  I had set out even more Lego pieces and wheels as well.  Everyone got several minutes to build a Lego car that we then raced.  I had seen very cool race tracks built by creative dads with access to cheap plywood and large garages in which to work.  But I didn’t have any of that, so we just put some masking tape on the floor for the starting line and had them push their cars as hard as they could to get them going.  Whoever went the farther won that heat.  Some were very quick, but stopped after a short distance, others were slower and some just spun in circles.

We had several different races and then I told the kids they could all take home their cars as well.  This inspired a few of them to quickly want to go add more to their cars.  We had so much Lego I told them to go right ahead.

Thanks again, second hand store!

The kids were pretty riled up by now, what with all the sugar racing through their veins and the excitement of a high speed chase, so I had them come back to the table for one last quiet game.  We gathered up all the Lego pieces that were spread out over the table into little piles in front of each child.  Then I handed them all straws and let them see how many pieces of Lego they could pick up using the suction from the straw and move into an empty bowl.  They weren’t allowed to use their hands, just the straw and the suction they created with their own mouths.  It was harder than they thought and got them all taking deep breaths and not wasting any air talking.  Evil genius I am! 🙂

Just before they went home, I passed out the treats.  I thought about doing a Lego pinato, talk about easy design!, but Noah wasn’t too keen on the idea.  So we passed and just made treat bags instead.  There were chocolate covered marshmallows that were supposed to be mini-figure heads.  They weren’t as great as the photos I was trying to copy, but the kids loved them. Also, using the same Lego block mold, I had made lots of chocolate Legos.  They looked so great, and were so easy!

My friend Julie had gone to the States at the end of June and very kindly imported several treats for me;Jelly Belly’s and a frog mold for Sarah’s party, miniature stuffed animals for Sophie’s party, and these cool Lego candies for Noah’s party.   You could actually stack them and build things with them!  The kids were blown away. Happy birthday, Noah.  Thanks for letting me throw you such a fun party. 🙂