LEGO Party: Everything Else

This is the last post telling you about our LEGO birthday party. Decorations are not my thing. If you have seen my house, you know that. So our decorations weren't artsy, they were simple. My birthday boy suggested that we gather some vases and put LEGO pieces in them. Great idea! 

The wrapping for our gift was not planned. It just happened when I went to wrap his present late at night before his birthday and realized we didn't have any wrapping paper. The brown paper was the best thing we had, but then I remembered reading about a LEGO font when I was looking for ideas for our party. I printed the above (plus his name), outlined it with a yellow Sharpie, cut it out, and glued it to a piece of red construction paper. He loved his impromptu wrapping paper (and the LEGO gift inside).

To entertain our guests we planned several activities. We had LEGO coloring pages ready to color with our LEGO shaped crayons. We had a contest to see who could make the most realistic looking LEGO from playdough. This picture shows the winning pieces from the adult contestants.

We played a LEGO version of "Hot Potato". We also had the classic "Guess the Items in the Jar", and of course we used LEGO pieces. We ended with several fun games of LEGO BINGO. The kids did not want to stop playing this!

Our goody bags contained the crayons, soap, and candy I made. The decorations on these bags may be the only original thing I did for this party. I am still surprised that it looked pretty good in the end. I used my kid's washable paint and painted the actual LEGO bricks, and then I stamped them on the paper bags. 

When the paint was dry, I drew the outline of the brick with colored markers. Then I added some curling ribbon, and after my husband showed me again how to curl ribbon with scissors, I did my best to curl them.

If you are able to use any of these ideas for your LEGO party, I would be thrilled if you could leave a comment to tell me how it worked for you!

Introduction to the Holimonth

I have decided to start celebrating "holi-months" instead of holidays at our house. I have so many ideas for things I want to do for upcoming holidays, but some times the holiday sneaks up on you or some times some one gets sick or some times the unexpected just steals your time. And before you know it, it is suddenly February 15th! Valentine's Day has come and gone and although you have completed and handed out the valentines, you haven't got around to the heart artwork you wanted to do nor the heart gingerbread cookies (which are left over from Christmas because I was sick and my husband had to do them with the kids, and although I am so glad he was willing and able to do it, even he admitted they just weren't quite the same).

When I was deciding last night what to do for art today, I thought that maybe I should just get a head start on St. Patrick's Day and everything green. Or maybe we could do some flowers, because it does feel like spring here with the snow melted and all. But being the only female in the house, I take every opportunity I can get to paint pink and purple hearts. I have to balance out all those guns and trucks and yelling and all sorts of boy stuff, with some pink hearts -- at least for my sanity. So for today, February 18th, we painted hearts in celebration of Valentine's Day. I got the idea to have my boys mix red and blue to make purple and then white to make shades from Art Projects for Kids blog. Since I wasn't sure they would do as well with the small heart print out, I made heart templates from cereal boxes for them to trace onto large paper. After they traced as many hearts as they wanted, I gave them their paints, showed them how to mix them without mixing it all into one color (which you know is going to happen in the end anyway), and let them at it.

Happy Valentine's Month!

February Sensory Bin

Here is our February sensory bin. It is Valentine's Day themed with winter leftovers. Our January sensory bin wasn't quite as fun as I imagined it being, so I changed the cotton balls out for white beans. My original intention was to keep the same basics and add in some Valentine's Day colors and shapes, but I didn't go with that plan. Actually, I was forced to use only what I had on hand because we are actually snowed in (my husband is digging us out as I type).

I started with three pounds of great northern beans. I put the white plastic doves and silver bells from January's bin back in. Then I added red plastic jewels, pink and purple pom poms, red feathers, red and white pony beads, heart shaped erasers, and red yarn bows.

The "scoops" are the tools my boys use the most with these bins. Our scoops for this month our two clean laundry detergent caps, a red baby bottle cap, and a pink popsicle mold bottom. I can almost guarantee that the baby bottle cap and popsicle bottom will be what they fight over. Why buy new scoops when they prefer these random odds and ends?