The Wearin' o' the Green

T. has been so funny since he turned four last week. He just informed me that it isn't "Saint Patrick's Day, it is Saint Spongebob's Day." Guess we need to wear some yellow!

Lego Birthday Party

I was inspired by Meredith at Like Merchant Ships, who shared her ideas for a ultimate Lego birthday party. I originally had big ideas for the party. I saved empty cereal, granola bar, and saran wrap boxes (among others) to spray paint and make into giant Legos for the party. I read about and planned for a Lego cake, which used marshmallows cut in half for the connectors on the Lego "bricks". Personalized key chains out of larger legos would be drilled and painted for party favors. Lego themed games would be played.

None of that happened. Time and a teething baby got me.

It turned out to be the best birthday party ever.













For decorations, I put out the bigger Duplo Legos all around, and we blew up balloons in primary colors. I tied the yellow lid from a Duplo set around the mailbox, along with more balloons.












The cake was colorful and I ended up decorating it with some of the Lego fruit snacks I bought for favors. (Note to aspiring Lego cake decorators: frosting a marshmallow?!? didn't work for me!) The adult guests had lots of fun putting the blue icing on their teeth and taking pictures of the results.


We ate hot dogs (with chili from home, thanks Mama and Papa Byrd!), chips, macaroni salad, corn chips and corn salsa, and cake and ice cream. It was stress-free on the food.

The weather man was forecasting tornadoes that day. Although it cleared up before the party, we decided to set up some activities in the garage. The kids played skee ball and rode bikes, and ended up heading outside anyway to play baseball.

I made party favor bags with bags I already had, filled with lego fruit snacks, mini gum ball machines, and Slinky's. I stapled an outdoor toy to the bag.












So, why was this the best birthday party ever? I relaxed and didn't try to make everything perfect. We let the kids interact and play as they wanted. We kept the food and decorations simple and used what we had where we could. This will be my new birthday party modus operandi.

Until baby's first party, that is.

Too Gone for Too Long

Faithful readers: I apologize for being away but we have been on VACATION! T.'s birthday party was last weekend (more to come on that later), and my in-laws were visiting. Now it is back to reality but we have lots of fun things planned to keep our spirits up.