THE showdown: A Lego Birthday Party

We survived. I survived.

My son's rite of passage for completing his first year of life is finally over; and it all went down pretty well.

I tried to listen to my dear husband's and friends words about not getting too caught up in the details, and how Martha Stewart is overrated. But it wasn't until 15 minutes before the party was to start, when it was 115 degrees outside, and I was STILL frosting this cake that was melting before my eyes that I finally internalized it.

After all is said and done, the pictures do most of the talking...

His party was one week after his actual birthday, so on his birthday we had the cake-eating photo op, so as to keep him looking snazzy for the party

the aftermath...

Mommy and the (little) man of the hour at his party. I free-handed the lego mini-figure man with a pencil and then just painted it in. By the end of the night, the shirt was completely smeared and saturated in strawberry juices; so it was definitely a one-time use; but so cute while it lasted.

a close-up of the shirt (and that precious face)

the family portrait. Poor Kyle; his shirt was more red than white by the end of the night

Now onto the details! First off, the home-made pinata; a diaper box, foam cups, lots of streamers, lots of watered down Elmers glue, and LOTS of time and whalah! I was especially proud of this one.

The goodie bags; we had red, green, and blue. They were filled with a mini Play-dough tub, 3 crayons, Lego look-a-like candy that I got at the mall, and a 6 pg. mini coloring book that was simply Lego coloring pages printed off, shrunken, and stapled together.

The cake; the color didn't come out as I had hoped; not a true Lego color, but eh. We used marshmallows for the pegs and some good ol' Betty Crocker cake mix. My satisfaction was fulfilled when I walked into the house and the kids were like, "ooohhhh, that's cool" and "It looks like a Lego!". That's all I needed.

My sweet friend Amber drew this for me; and learned a little espanol in the process. We ended up playing "pin the 1 on the Lego man", so it got good use. If Cal was old enough to voice how much he dis/likes Legos, I would've kept it, but we ended up chucking it at the end of the night.

Calvin was a total cutie the entire night; especially for not having his nap. He knocked out even before we were off the street. Kyle asked me later, "On a scale of 1-10" I responded, "9; a 10 would have been having it at our own place" ;) Maybe next year.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without THE HELP from our families; they practically planned and executed the whole thing. But don't worry, we'll definitely be paying for it; we owe them a fancy Peruvian dinner.

p.s. Most ideas for the inspiration of the party was found through Pinterest. LOVE it.