Show us your party – Jack’s Lego birthday

My eldest son is a Lego fanatic so when it came time for his eighth birthday, I wasn’t at all surprised when he declared he really, really, really wanted a Lego birthday party! So, less than a month after my daughter’s Wonderland soiree, it was time to put my party hat on again and throw the best damn Lego party I could muster!

Lego these days has all sorts of dimensions – Ninjago, City, Heroes – that easily lend themselves to party themes, but Jack and I decided to go back to basics and use traditional Lego colours of yellow and red as the basis for his celebration, with a bit of green and blue thrown in for good measure.

Here’s the invitation, inspired by an idea I came across on Etsy. Jack constructed his name out of Lego with much aplomb and creativity, then we simply photographed it and added in the detail. On a Limb can make one to order for you, if you’re not so computer savvy.

I didn’t want my son to think his party was any less special than his sister’s, so I went all out again. (Oh the crazy things us mothers do!). You know that old saying, like kids in a candy shop? That’s exactly how the boys reacted when they saw the sweets table. I was absolutely thrilled to see their excitement when they saw all the sweet treats laid out just for them.

So what caught their eyes? How about jellies in Lego colours of green, blue, red and yellow. (Don’t you just love the spoon holder, easily made by Blu Tacking a minifigure onto a red Rice cup from Lark). Or soft drinks in the same bright primary Lego colours, with blue paper straws from Invite Me. Vanilla cupcakes and chocolate puddings were dressed with cute edible Lego fondant toppers found online, while m&m’s made for perfect Lego nubs on the sugar cookies. And they woofed down the chocolate Lego minifigures and sour Lego gummies that I made using silicone moulds found on eBay.

I even tried my hand at Lego head cake pops made from TimTams – something I will never, ever, ever try again after just about losing my mind! (Here’s my tip to you – don’t waste your money on a write-on edible ink pen. It won’t work! I ended up handpainting each face at two in the morning with a fine brush and a little royal icing!). Take a close look, you’ll see all the dodgy ones I hid at the back! Before I set the boys loose on the sweets, they feasted on little hotdogs, ‘Lego’ pizzas, fairy bread and homemade sausage rolls. Delish!

The birthday cake was a white chocolate mud number, layered with lemon curd and white chocolate ganache, all made into the shape of  Lego head using a recipe from my new birthday cake bible, Cake Decorating at Home. I coated it with Swiss meringue buttercream and cut out the eyes, brows and mouth details from licorice. Here is it on one of the natty and rather Lego-like Jansen & Co cake stands I found at The Wooden Crate. It disappeared faster than you can say “happy birthday”!

Now on to the decorations. I spent ages and ages making paper bunting in Lego shades of blue, green, red and yellow to festoon around the backyard marquee, but it was so shockingly windy on the party day that we pulled it all down shortly into the festivities and moved the party to the verandah and indoors instead. Isn’t that always the way? As guests arrived, we had them design their own minifigures, then used those drawings as decorations as well. I used this Lego minifigure printable found online.

We also had a guess-how-many-Legos-in-the-jar game, a Lego block tossing game (above) and a build-your-own invention game (below), which kept them nicely occupied while I set up the sweets table. If you look in the top corner of the next photo, you’ll see two giant bags full of yellow balloons – eighty-five balloons, to be precise. Twenty balloons contained a little Lego minifigure head, and one a little Lego man hat. The guests had to pop the balloons by sitting on them and those who collected the most minifigure heads won a prize, with a special prize for the cap finder. It was a riot!

The other game that proved a hit was a Lego relay – the boys were divided into two teams and had to race to fill a cup with tiny Lego pieces. They played this one over again.

I figured eight-year-old were too old for party hats, but I still wanted something that said “party”. So I was thrilled to find these free printable Lego masks online. I had them printed at my local Officeworks, then cut them out and secured them with hat elastic. The boys – and my gate-crashing daughter – loved them. That’s my birthday boy, right of centre in his cool Lego-like Amigos tee by Little Horn, found at Cradle Rock.

Here’s the low-down on the other small details. My mum made the Lego-yellow tablecloths and bright spotted table runners used to such perfect effect on both the sweets table and the kids’ table, while I made the happy birthday banner and the Lego-like name tags. It’s amazing what you can do with a free Lego font and a husband who knows his way around Photoshop! The red square plastic plates came from The Reject Shop (a last resort when the square paper plates I really wanted proved impossible to find, but here’s the thing – the boys didn’t care a hoot about the plates!) and the red and yellow serving bowls from a local party shop. The birthday boy made the serving dishes used to hold the cake pops and lollipops from Megabloks and Duplo bricks we already had at home.

When all the fun was over, the guests took home a mini Lego container found at Bloomsbury that we filled with Skittles, m&m’s and other small treats. They also scored a giant lollipop (pictured with individual name tags on the sweets table) and various prizes, including Lego minifigures, Lego pens, Lego sharpeners, water bottles, notebooks and other Lego licensed items found in the stationery aisles at Big W and Target. My son’s giant Lego head sorter came in very handy for holding all the prizes.

Want to share your child’s wow-worthy party with us? Then just fill in the Show us your party form on our contacts page. While we can’t reply to every email, we’ll certainly let you know if your party is chosen to be showcased on Babyology. We can’t wait to hear from you and look forward to seeing your amazing parties!