Legoland! 

I was very excited for us to visit Legoland! I might have even been a bit more excited about planning to go to Legoland than I was planning to go to Disney. (Have you tried to plan your first trip to Disney? Hello... Overwhelming!!!) . I really enjoy building Legos with my girls! So much so that Claire's birthday theme was Lego! Also, all 4 of us love the Lego movie, we watch it all the time and have yet to get sick of it! 

Legoland Florida has this great thing called Homeschool Mondays! Kids tickets are only $10 each and adult tickets are $25 each. That is an amazing deal and I am so thankful that we got to take advantage of that! 

Legoland also has this fun thing called Minifigure trading. Most of the employees around the park have minifigs on their name tags and they will trade with you! In preparation for that we made some necklaces for the girls to wear that would hold their minifigs! I let the girls pick out their favorite color 2x6 plate piece and then Brian drilled a hole in them, we attached jump rings, and then threaded them with some rainbow colored elastic cord. I chose the 2x6 size so that they could have 2 minifigs to trade with in case they fell in love with one right away I wanted them to have options. :) 

I made the girls Wyldstyle inspired shirts with my Silhouette machine! 

Our first ride was the carousel! We loved that the carousel was Lego horses! So cute! 

Then it was off to driving school! One of the great things about Legoland is that a lot of the rides are designed for kids to ride by themselves! Both girls loved that they were in control! I feel like it is so good for them to be able to experience things on their own and I really loved that aspect of Legoland! 

We got to meet Wyldstyle!! 

I used some scraps to make a Lego shirt for myself as well :). I couldn't be left out! 

Emmett!! 

All of the Lego statues around the park are so cool! Claire thought this was Belle :) 

Pirates! 

Legoland has kept part of the botanical gardens from when the park was Cypress Gardens. Midday we took a little walk out there to check out the Banyan Tree! The HUGE Banyan tree behind us was planted as a seedling in 1939. The massive size was breathtaking in person! 

Legoland's hours on the day that we went were 10-5 so by the end of the day we were rushing to squeeze everything in! 

Since Mommy likes Lego it was pretty easy for the girls to convince me to pick up some Legos to bring home with us!  

Sweet Claire was really excited to see the bathrooms because she thought the toilets would be made out of Lego! haha!  

Here are the Minifigs that Kenley ended up with! 

Our only complaint about Legoland was that the employees were not efficient about loading and unloading the rides. It was very time consuming to wait for an employee to lock your seatbelt before the ride, then come check it, then after the ride come to unlock your seat belt... even on smaller rides. The carousel was especially time consuming. I'm all for safety but this was a bit much. I think that if they had at least 2 employees per ride this would be alleviated a ton! That way 1 person could control the ride while the other person did all the seat belt checks and that kind of stuff! 

Also we would have LOVED more time!! 5pm came MUCH too quickly!! 

Some things we LOVED at Legoland:

• The Legends of Chima water ride! It SOAKED us! It was a hot day so that was really welcome!
• Kenley loved all of the rides even though she is our thrill ride seeker! Claire was too short for 2 rides so Kenley got to ride the big ones twice in a row. She loved that! Their child swap system was better than at Disney! 
• Claire is our hesitant ride rider but she liked the dragon roller coaster! She was even telling me about it today! There was no one in line behind us so we got to ride it twice in a row!! 
• The kids could ride lots of rides by themselves! 
• The wait lines had kid waiting areas with Duplo tables for the kids to build with while their parents waited in line.... GENIUS! 
• Lots of Legos for sale! There is a whole store dedicated to clearance Lego and one to pick-a-brick! 
• Minifigure trading! You probably aren't going to come away with the minifigure of your dreams but this was a super fun aspect for the girls! (Even if the minifigs aren't what I would have chosen) Claire brought home a Lego with a cowboy hat, bomber jacket, and a peg leg and she couldn't be happier with it! 
• Claire also loved the Beetle Bounce :) She actually enjoyed all of the rides! Legoland really is the perfect park to take small children to! 

I can't wait to start planning a trip to Legoland California!! 

Claire's Girly Lego Party - The Party Favors

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

Part 3 - The Activities 

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... :) 

Claire's Girly Lego Party - The Activities

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

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

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!