Saturday, September 28, 2013

Taya's 6th Birthday Party - Lego Friends

 Why is it that Taya ALWAYS chooses a birthday theme that is pretty much non existent in the party stores.  Last year she wanted My Little Pony & I struggled trying to find ANYTHING pony related.  This year when I was looking for Lego Friends, I found My Little Pony party supplies EVERYWHERE.  So this basically guarantees that Lego Friends party goods will be in stores everywhere by this time next year.  That's just how it always seems to work out.

I really had to rack my brain for this one since there was NOTHING anywhere with supplies or ideas on this one.  But I ended up getting creative & the party turned out pretty fun.  Taya enjoyed it at least which was the whole purpose to begin with.

I decorated the party table with the Lego Friends colors: purple tablecloth, pink plates, white silverware, & turquoise napkins.  All of it came from Walmart.  (Easy & cheap too).  I also found some cute purple cups that said Happy Birthday with pink & teal flowers on them.  They matched the theme perfectly.  I looked through my gallon sized ziplock bag of loose balloons & found six that matched the theme & pulled out my trusted helium tank & blew them up.  (Yes, I have a helium tank.  I also have 6 kids so when you're putting on 6 parties a year, it's MUCH cheaper to buy a helium tank yourself than pay someone to blow balloons up for you.)


Taya was SO excited for her special day.  She loved all the colors & couldn't wait for her friends to arrive.


She was especially excited for her cupcakes.  Taya is my cupcake girl.  She almost always prefers cupcakes over a big cake.  I love it.


For the goody bags I found plain colored paper bags & added cardstock circles to them to make them look like Legos.  Easy Peasy.



Then I filled the goody bags with some Friends Lego pencils (back to school sales), Lego shaped rice krispie treats, bags of Lego candy (sold in bulk at the candy store), & some other pink & purple candies.



For the cupcakes, I made strawberry cake (because it's pink) & then decorated them in pink, purple, & blue frostings.  I bought a Lego chocolate mold & melted Wilton colored chocolate melts (at Walmart in the cake decorating section) & filled the molds.  Once the chocolate cools, you just pop them out of the mold & voila!  You have 
CHOCOLATE LEGOS.  
I also used colored sixlet candies (boxed cake section of Walmart) to add a little more color to them.  They turned out a whole lot cuter than I imagined they would.



I love my little cupcake tower.  Best birthday present I've ever received.  I use it for EVERYTHING.  The cupcakes looked really cute all stacked up on the tower.


Taya was VERY excited.


Now the next bazillion pictures shows how insane this house is when it comes to Friends Legos.  All three of my girls 
LOVE THEM, COLLECT THEM, & BUILD THEM.
Cadence decided it would be fun to build all the sets we had & use them as decorations for the party.  I love it when my kids get involved in the decorating.  It makes it fun.

SO. . . . here's the Lego sets we own. . . . & to think there's still more we don't have yet.














They really enjoyed setting them all up on display for everyone to see.  It seems like they have the entire Heartlake City.  They sure love playing with them all.

I found a $6 flower pinata at Walmart that was pink & purple so I thought it would be perfect for the party so I filled it with candy & got it ready for our guests.


I also have a punch board that I use for preschool, church singing time, & other activities.  Bladen saw it the other day & told me it looked like a giant lego so I thought of a way to incorporate it into Taya's party.  I ran across some little Lego Friends bagged sets at Walmart 2 months ago for $1.50 each.  I bought 9 of them knowing I'd use them at the party in some way.  I ended up putting them in the holes of my punch board & put tissue paper over the openings so the girls could punch through them & pull their prize out.


I also found some coloring pages on lego.com & printed them out for the girls to color.


I put some Lego candy into a small mason jar & tied a ribbon around it.  The girls had to guess how many pieces of Lego candy were in the jar & write their guesses on a piece of paper.  At the end of the party I announced that there were 56 pieces in the jar & whoever guessed the closest got to take the jar of lego candy home with them.



Sisters forever & always.

When the party guests arrived we first colored Lego Friends pictures while we watched the Lego Friends movie on Netflix.  The movie is only 23 minutes long so it kept their attention & allowed some late-comers some time to get here after soccer games without having them miss too much.

Once everyone arrived we sat in a big circle on the floor with a pile of legos in the middle.  I let the girls take turns rolling 2 die.  Whatever number they rolled on the die they got to pick that many pieces of legos from the center pile.  We just kept going around the circle until all the legos in the middle were gone & each girl had their own little pile of legos.  Then we spent a good 15 minutes letting them build something magical out of their piles.  I was amazed at the creativity of these girls.  They came up with some really fun creations.


And of course my boys chased balloons while we played our
lego game.  They are so funny.




They really got into selecting the right pieces for their masterpieces.  I was loving watching the wheels turn in their heads as they started creating things.



This little girl made a race track with 2 bikes & a skateboard.  She
had a checkered flag, a trophy, & everything.  VERY CUTE.

Lorien build 2 airplanes.  One delivered pizza
& the other went back & forth in time collecting
special artifacts from the time periods it visited.

Taya made a special snow plow that picked up
snow super fast so you didn't have to shovel
the walks.

Cadence made an alley way where cats lived.


It really was amazing seeing the creativity these little girls had.  They didn't want to stop building.  I probably could have let them play with the legos the entire party & they would have been happy.


But, it was piƱata time!




It's my birthday & I'll cry if I want to.  Taya was extra sensitive
today for some reason.  She was sad the piƱata didn't break
 the first time she was up at bat.


I love how my daughter Lorien used the stick like a spear.  Leave it to Lo to think outside the box.  She put a hole straight through that flower!



She was able to knock it down the 2nd time she was up at
bat.  She was VERY excited about that.
 

 

After collecting candy from our piƱata, we went inside for some cake & ice cream.  Taya got all nervous & shy & actually started to cry when everyone sang to her.  Bless her heart.  I forget that she gets so shy when all eyes are on her.  She was SUPER excited about blowing out the candles though.





Everyone enjoyed their Lego cupcakes & ice cream.


AFter eating cake & ice cream it was time to open presents.  Taya has the best friends in the world.  They got her the coolest things.  She was SO happy to have them all there.

Lizzie got her the Carrollton Elementary School spirit shirt
she's been wanting for a while, as well as a cute necklace with
the letter "T" on it.

Opening Presents is SO MUCH FUN. 
Isabeau got her the 2 Lego Friends sets she's been begging for.

Neveah got her a really fun bead necklace kit.

Molly got her 2 My Little Ponies & some Pearler Beads.

Cadence put a bow on Canyon's head.  He's my
favorite present.  I love that kid so much.

Megan gave Taya a mosaic craft set.  We LOVE these sets.

And Sadie gave Taya some really cool glow in the dark
sidewalk chalk.

Taya was SO excited about everything.  These little girls have been the best.  We just moved into this neighborhood a few months ago so it's sometimes hard to make friends when you're the newbie.  These girls all live right here around us & go to the same bus stop as us.  We love them all & have become the best of friends with their families.  There are just the best people in the world here.  I love it in VA.

After Taya opened her presents from her friends, we told them that Taya wanted to give them each a gift to thank them for being such wonderful friends to her.  I put up the punch board & let the girls start punching away.  Some holes were filled with candy & others had Lego sets inside.  The rule was that each girl got to punch a hole, if there was candy inside she was allowed to go again until she found a Lego set.  If she found the Lego set first, then her turn was over.  The girls had a BLAST punching through the holes & pulling out their surprises.





We had a blast.  I hope the other girls had fun too.  This turned out to be a super fun birthday party to throw.  Thank you Taya for always making me think OUTSIDE the box & for bringing out my creative side.

I love you my little princess.  Happy Birthday.