Lego, Lego everywhere!

I don't know if my words will do justice to the craziness but also the fun that was Dylan's birthday party. Let me start out by saying I had originally told Dylan no party this year. He's had a pretty big party every year so far. I am a little bit insane and so I did things like throw a bowling party for a 2 year old (Dylan, not Caitlin.) So I thought with all of the fuss over his baptism this year (not pictured but hopefully I will be able to back track to that soon) and all the family we had in town for Thanksgiving/Dylan's baptism we could forego the expensive and/or time consuming party for him this year. I was so, so wrong. He didn't follow my logic and I was persuaded to do something for birthday #8. But by this time I was too late to book any place cost effective and all the dates near his actual birthday were filled with the parties of the 30 thousand other kids in his class with fall birthdays as well. So we decided to throw a home birthday party, but rent a room at the community center so that there was enough space for all the boys from his class + a few non class friends. Lego was the theme and I put Ken in charge of decorations while I looked in to games. He made awesome giant Lego for the room:

Jennings family, post party, posing with giant Lego made by Ken.

I tried to make a home made cake that was going to look like Lego bricks (you've probably seen it done successfully- you use marshmallows for the little bumps on top). I was not successful! I got started with the assembling, got frustrated, threw the cake in the garbage, called Ken and told him to order a cake from Costco. He then had the brilliant idea to have Lego minifigures spelling out Dylan's name on the cake:

I love the cake! He's brilliant. This is why I married him! So Ken took care of the cake and the decor, and I spent hours stealing other people's creativity off the internet. I found a website with tons of Lego party ideas. The kids were divided into teams and had five minutes to build something- a car or house or tower. At the end of five minutes I took photos of their creations and they were given five more minutes to build something else. repeat until the kids start throwing Lego around the room.
Then we cleaned up the room and had a few relay races- carry the Lego on the spoon, build a tower out of Lego while wearing gloves.... Then they ate cake and went home.

It was a fun party but I have learned my lesson. I want to pay other people to run the party for me! Or maybe next year we'll let him take one friend to a movie. I like that idea even better!