The Lego Birthday...

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         I like birthday parties.  I like the planning.  I like the creating.  I like the yard full of happy children.  I have a son who loves birthday parties too, but as it turns out the anticipation created by the planning and the creating and the waiting for the yard full of kids is just too much for him to handle.  His actual day of birth fell on a Wednesday this year.  I made him his favorite dinner, and by special request a chocolate cake with chocolate pudding on top.  We had a lovely evening with the family, but the air was thick with anticipation for the Lego Party on Sunday. 

         
          In all the fun I had this year with my daughter's party, I forgot my son does not deal well with anticipation.  After weeks of planning and preparing it was just too much for him to handle when rain clouds rolled in the day of the party. Please let me remember that next year he needs a very small surprise party!
           When he told me he wanted a Lego party the wheels immediately went to spinnin'.  In my Google search of Lego parties I found a woman who made chocolate Lego candies for her children's Valentine's Day cards...yes I started looking in February. (As a side note she just published a blog post about how to make the candies: http://sugarswings.blogspot.com/2011/05/candy-lego-men-tutorial.html) I ordered a silicon Lego mold, but opted out of the chocolate and decided to make Lego crayons instead.  Over the years I have accumulated a giant bag of broken crayons.  My daughter and Mother helped peel and sort crayons in to color groups.  

        I made a makeshift double broiler out of a tin can and a pan of water to melt the crayons.  Before melting the crayons I pinched one side of the top of the tin can to make a pouring spout.  When the crayons were melted I poured them into the mold.  It took about 20 minutes for the new crayons to cool, and then I just popped them out of the mold.  I started with yellow and worked my way through the rainbow and then on to brown and black.  I used the same tin can for all the colors and just melted the new color into what little was left of the old.  Very, very little clean up involved in the project...always a plus.  The only draw back is the mold now seems to have wax embedded in it so it has become a permanent crayon mold. 

          When the Lego crayons were complete they went in the party favor bag along with coloring sheets I downloaded from the Lego site.  I also downloaded "stickers" from Lego and used them to decorate the outside of a brown paper bag for the party favors.  For the older children I added a Lego Minifigures to each bag, a small package with one Lego guy and accessories. For the under 5 crowd at the party I found a box of Lego Duplo with lots of different Duplo animals and put one in each of their bags.  The bags also had a jar of bubbles and some balloons.

         My son brainstormed with my husband to plan a Lego adventure game, but the rain damped their plans.  This is where the anticipation and excitement vs. the reality of the weather really started to take a toll on my son.  The game they had planned was really fun and creative, but the weather just did not cooperate.  We had other games planned, including Pin-the-Party-Hat-on-the-Lego-Guy, but after the melt down with the adventure game, we went straight to the cake. 

           Lego Guy Cake started out as a chocolate strawberry cake, but had an unfortunate burning accident involving an unheard timer.   However, all was not lost and I was able to use the bottom half of the cake.  I made a vanilla cake to layer in with the chocolate and the in product was quite yummy.  Having lots of different layers actually helped make the Lego Guy more 3-D than I had originally planned.

           Two weeks later my son remembers it all as a fun party and a chance to play with his friends.  For me, it was more a reminder to cater to the individual child, which doesn't always mean following every creative whim. 

  Check out the Ultimate Birthday Party Game Guide!