Claire's Girly Lego Party - The Party Favors

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

This is my 4th and final post chronicling the fun of Claire's Girly Lego 4th Birthday Party!

To make the Lego party favor bags, I used the 4.5 x 6.5 paper from Hobby Lobby that I also used to make the birthday banner. I cut 6 circles out of each piece strategically so that I would have those extra pieces to tape on the walls and hang on the Christmas Tree. We used sticky foam to attach the circles to the paper and then we used glue dots to stick the paper Legos on to plain white paper bags. I made the name tags with my Silhouette and the Lego Thick Font. 




We filled our party favor bags with an extra Lego Head Marshmallow Pop, a Lego Soap, Lego Starburst, a mini Play-doh, and a mini bubbles. During the party the kids were able to add their coloring pages and the Lego guys that they made to their party bags. 

(I totally realize that this marshmallow pop looks a little wonky. I took these pictures after the party and this was the lone survivor!) 

To make the Lego Starburst we melted a few like colored Starbursts in the microwave until they became a Play-doh like consistency and then we pressed the dough into these molds from Amazon. Work in small batches because they harden quickly! For these to work, you have to microwave them. We tried just softening them in our hands but those ones didn't harden enough to keep the Lego shape. I made some simple tags for them with my Silhouette software's print and cut feature and the Lego Thick font! These Starburst were definitely a hit with both the kids and the adults! 

I used the large Lego guy mold to make soap with Melt-n-Pour Clear Glycerin Soap from Michaels, food coloring, and a touch of Coconut Lime Fragrance Oil. I made a bunch of different colors so each kid got a different color. I also made two different tags.

 A girly tag...

and a less girly tag for the boys... :)
 (The dotted line feature in my Silhouette software made folding these tags so simple!) 


Here are some links to my previous Lego party posts! 
Part 1 - The Decorations
Part 2 - The Food

I LOVED this party!  It was so fun to throw and Claire absolutely loved it too! 
Now to decide on Kenley's 6th party theme... :) 

Merry Christmas 2014!

Thursday, December 25, 2014



This is our Christmas card... You wouldn't know that because the stack of them is still sitting on my night stand waiting to be addressed... So you may be getting a Happy New Year Christmas card from us... or maybe a Happy Valentines Day Christmas card. We will see :)

Merry Christmas!! 

Claire's Girly Lego Party - The Activities

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

When I was planning the activities for Claire's Girly Lego party, I knew that I wanted to keep it simple since we would have 12 kids between the ages of 2 and 7. 

When our guests arrived we had Lego Minifigure coloring pages set out. The crayons were in the bottom of a Lego Juniors box. (I got a lot of use out of those Lego Juniors and Lego Duplo box sets especially since they also doubled as Claire's birthday presents from us!)


I played a Roll a Lego Guy review game with my Apprentice Class at Classical Conversations and it was a hit so I tweaked it a bit and we played it at Claire's party. I covered the sides of a foam block from Hobby Lobby with lime green duct tape and some images that I pieced together in my Silhouette Studio software. The sides of the cube had: head, torso, legs, hat, roll again, and players choice. I ordered knock-off Lego minifigure pieces on ebay. Of course I would have loved to use real Lego but these guys came out to be about .30 cents a guy versus Lego which are about $3-4 a guy... and really, the kids don't care :). I ordered a pack of 50 but I only received 40 so Ebay refunded me my money making these guys totally free!


Each kid got a chance to roll the cube, pick their piece, pass the cube to the next kid, and then wait their turn to get the next piece.... Making their first guy this way took kind of a long time, so after everyone rolled to make their first guy, I just passed the bowl around and let each kid pick a hat, then head, then torso, then legs for their second guy. I had enough pieces that each kid could have made another guy but by that time some of the kiddos were getting a little restless so we moved on to the food :) 

The last activity that we did was guessing how many Legos were in this glass jar. I ordered this small Lego storage head on Target.com and I am so glad that I did! It added a little something extra special to the food table and Claire absolutely LOVES it :) 

There were 612 Legos and Duplos in the jar! Counted by me :). The closest kid to guess was Kenley and she guessed 408... Most of the other kids had really low guesses like 70 and 100... I think these kiddos were a little young to have a grasp on estimation. But I loved it as a decoration! 

Previous Post #1- The Decorations
Previous Post #2- The Food
Up Next- The Party Favors

Claire's Girly Lego Party - The Food

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

For the food at Claire's Girly Lego Party we did a mix of Lego food themed snacks and some of Claire's favorite foods. She insisted on the deviled eggs and string cheese :) 

Our Lego Party Menu:

String Cheese

Deviled Eggs

 Marshmallow Lego Head Pops
 

Fruit Kabobs

Carrots and Ranch Dip

Since it was a morning party, I wanted to keep it low sugar so we went with simple frosted mini cupcakes. There are so many AMAZING Lego cake ideas on Pinterest but I am so glad that we decided to go with simple cupcakes! 

Trader Joe's carries mini water bottles that are the perfect size for kids parties! Since I was making the water bottle wrappers with my Silhouette Cameo's print and cut feature, I went ahead and printed each child's name on their water bottle wrap. This was so convenient during the party for kids to be able to locate their waters! I will definitely be doing this for future parties! 

Overpriced Coffee for the grown-ups :) 

 My Mom helped me make little stands for the food labels out of Legos. The little touches of lego versions of the foods on the food labels were one of my favorite parts of the party! 

Previous Post: The Decorations
Up Next: The Party Activities

Claire's Girly Lego Party - The Decorations

Monday, December 22, 2014

There are tons of Lego party ideas on Pinterest but there are actually very few girly Lego parties on there. This party is a mix of a few of my own ideas and a few ideas from Pinterest that I just swapped the colors on to make them girly! My Mom and Sister are in town to help celebrate Claire's party and I put them to work! They were so helpful with making all of my crazy ideas come to life! I am so thankful that they were able to be here! 

Birthday banner made with my Silhouette machine, the Lego Thick font, and foam stickers.

The food table:
(More on the food in my next post!)
The name poster is a poster board from Hobby Lobby. I cut white vinyl in Lego Thick font for the Claire and then I outlined her name in black paint and then in lots of coats of yellow paint.

We have Ikea Expedit bookcases and I knew that they would make awesome giant bricks! We covered them in tablecloths and paper plates from Hobby Lobby. I love the statement that they make! The tissue poms are also from Hobby Lobby. They are so cheap to make from scratch but sometimes it is nice to just pay a little bit more for convenience! 

The green and pink large bricks are actually lids to Lego Juniors sets and Lego Duplo sets. 


On top of the giant Legos we displayed some of the girls small Lego sets. 

The bathroom got a few touches of Lego too :)
A tissue box covered in wrapping paper to look like a Lego and the cardboard packaging that surrounded those Lego Juniors and Lego Duplo sets taped to the wall! 

My Mom, Sister, and I all wore Lego earrings! They are earring backs from Hobby Lobby that my Mom hot glued a little Lego piece to! 

Claire's Birthday Shirt:
I made a brick shape in my Silhouette Studio software and then added a 4 to it in the Lego Thick font. I cut it out of glitter heat transfer, ironed it to a Garanimals shirt from Walmart and voila custom Lego birthday shirt! 

For Kenley's 5th Birthday party I started a tradition of taping photos of the birthday kid up in their age for the party and it has become one of my favorite traditions. It is so sweet to look back and see how they have grown! And it forces me to print pictures which is always helpful! 

Kenley made a sign for our front door to welcome everyone to the party :) 

The night before the party I was loving all of the decorations except for the fact that our Christmas tree was still in the room.... It was driving me crazy because it clashed with all the party decor. I had taken all of our other Christmas decor down and hid it all in our bedroom... It is a little harder to hide a Christmas tree though. Since Claire's birthday is so close to Christmas, I am a bit of an extremist and want her birthday to be just her birthday, not her birthday and Christmas... To help the tree blend in,  I hung a bunch of extra paper Lego's up on the tree, a Lego Juniors box lid became the tree topper, and a plastic table cloth became the tree skirt. This helped to make our Christmas tree blend in a little bit better with the party decor! 

Up Next: The Food! 

Happy Birthday Claire Louise!

Saturday, December 20, 2014


Today marks 4 years with our silly sweet little preemie! She definitely made a dramatic entrance into this world and that flair for the dramatic still runs strong in her 4 years later! She loves to crawl into bed and snuggle me almost every morning. We put balloons on the floor of her room for her to wake up to but she crawled in bed with me in the middle of the night so she didn't really wake up to balloons. :) Silly girl! She has such a silly bubbly funny personality and makes us laugh constantly. She has the best laugh in the whole world, we tickle her all the time just so that we can hear her laugh. She is at the best age right now! We love you CLo!!

Here are some facts about Claire at 4 years old:
Favorite Color: "Lellow" (Yellow)
Favorite Food: "String Cheese" (Deviled Eggs are her 2nd favorite)
Favorite Animal: "Elephants"
Favorite Toy: "My Jewelee Box" (That she got from Grandma Ronk for her birthday)
Best Friend: "Auntie Kimbe"
Favorite Thing To Do: "Do stuff with Mommy says and read books!"

Claire's Nicknames: CLo, Claire Louise String Cheese, Tootie Butter String Cheese... Those last two are nicknames that she tells us to call her... haha 

She loves playing with Legos and will play with them independently for hours so that was the perfect party theme for her this year! I took lots of pictures of her party so I will have to break it up into a few posts and spread them out this week! 

Thanksgiving 2014

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

This year spent Thanksgiving with our friends the Gjertsens

Growing up as a vegetarian, a meal centered around meat never made Thanksgiving to be one of my favorite holidays.. by any stretch. But I do enjoy spending time with friends and eating yummy foods. This Thanksgiving was probably my favorite yet! The company and the food! I made rolls, mashed potatoes, sweet potato stacks, and green bean casserole. The Gjertsens prepared the turkey, stuffing, gravy, and dessert. 8 years of marriage and I am yet to make a turkey... How long do you think I can hold out? 

To give the kiddos something to do while we waited for the food, I brought the fixings to make apple turkeys! We used marshmallows, green and red grapes, blueberries, and cheese cubes. I was trying to keep the sugar factor down....

However, Claire only used marshmallows :) 
She also kept calling hers a parrot. Haha! 





I swiped this picture from the Gjertsen's blog :) 

If you haven't checked out their blog yet you really should. We have been watching them grow as they are in the midst of unique adoption journey. Their testimony through this trying time has been an example and a challenge to Brian and I. We are so thankful that God brought us back to NC and put these amazing people in our lives! 

Halloween 2014- DIY Ninjago Costumes

Monday, December 8, 2014

This year for Halloween the girls wanted to be Jay and Kai from Lego Ninjago.

I was excited that they didn't want to be Anna or Elsa since 90% of the girl population would be dressing up as that for Halloween. :) I was also pretty excited because I knew that these costumes would be easy to make and they would be warm for the girls to wear while trick-or-treating! 

Their costumes consisted of solid colored sweat pants, 2 solid colored long sleeve t-shirts (one to wear and the other to tie around their head like a ninja mask), a pair of black gloves, some black shoes, and Dollar Tree swords. I used Glitter Heat Transfer Material and my Silhouette machine to make these go from plain ninja costumes to Lego Ninjago DX costumes!   

I couldn't find any templates online for the dragon image so I copied a coloring page and came up with my own. It isn't perfect but it definitely gets the job done! I'm not sure how to post a Silhouette file to this blog so here is an image you can grab and trace if you want to make your own homemade Ninjago  costumes! 
(The pattern is reversed for the sake of the heat transfer. The lightning bolts are for the blue ninja, Jay and the fire is for the red ninja, Kai)

Here are my little Ninjagos in action: 




We went trick-or-treating with the Steels in their neighbor hood! It was so fun! I love that we live near them once again! 


 
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