Finally after waiting a few weeks we were able to celebrate Brooks' birthday with a party! Daddy was in Singapore for a week and the weekends were full of other stuff. So after a little planning and organizing we managed to get his friends over after school on Tuesday. The American School has a 1/2 day every Tuesday so its the perfect day for an afternoon activity, like a birthday party!! Some of the party people came home with us and others came over after getting off the bus in the compound. Brooks has been planning on a Lego party for months. We thought ahead and bought a few things in the States before coming back to Doha. After some research I was encouraged to do lots of fun Lego party ideas but Doha limited us a bit. We pulled it off and Brooks had lots of fun!
Funny thing about Doha...they don't sell big bags of M&Ms. So I ended up with 48 small bags. At least we have the blessed peanut M&M, its just funny what ridiculous conveniences I'm used to.
Marshmallow Lego Head Pops
#1 fan of the pops!
After lots of thinking and web searching I decided that making a Lego cake wasn't going to happen. Challenging for sure...unless you're a fondant pro. One day I'll take the plunge. So instead we made white chocolate toppers from molds I bought on Etsy. Unfortunately Doha doesn't sell almond bark. Only white chocolate that's pric, sweet and very difficult to color.
Thanks to Duncan Hines and Lindsay's incredible icing recipe, the cupcakes were gobbled up.
Mr. Birthday!
As soon as we were home with the crazy party people they inhaled some pizza and were ready for what was next! This was the first time for us to host our own party without other entertainment. What I learned is that this age and BOYS need constant activity. They finished their pizza in less than 5 minutes. I was thinking more like 20 minutes, while we waited on the bus riders. And lets just say 5 and 6 year old BOYS are NUTS after school. One day I won't be surprised by the wildness of a boy! I need more of it obviously. They
While we waited for a few others to arrive we played "Lego Lego...Where's the Lego". Bit hit for these NUTS!
Every 15 minutes we kept looking at our watches thinking, "surely its been an hour". It was really fun maybe but we should set the time for and hour or hour and half next year :) A few planned Lego games and a few off the cuff since this group was on the move and ready for what was up next! We played a game to move Legos from the table to the plate by sucking through a straw. Also built letters with the Legos. Anyone, got another Lego game? Anyone?
Georgia and her party keeper, Mrs. Lindsay
Barrett playing the "Lego Drop"
Presents
Candles!
Still innocent and precious. He says she is his best friend! I guess we'll all know when things change and he turns gross and she turns too girly.
Passing the time with a little outdoor play.
Most of the friends invited were from his class last year in PreK along with a few buddies from the compound and T-ball team.
Mrs. Kim and the crew! Thank goodness for Kim, Lindsay and Nick they were awesome help!
Variety of expressions...
Doha moment...the Spiderman pinata I bought for on sale about $10 (orig. $50) was absolute rubbish! Candy poured out of it before we even started. I had originally planned to make my own pinata but for obvious Doha reasons I decided to simply turn the circle shape Spidey piece of junk into something Lego"ish". It wasn't lego"ish" at all but after a serious repair we were up and runnin'!
Most of what we gave for favors came from the US of A including mini Lego sets especially made for birthday party favors. Sorry no pic.
Candy Legos that actually lock together. Taste like Runts or maybe Smarties and are fun to play with.
We made crayons with our Lego man mold. Great but lots of crayon peeling. And time consuming since you can only make 8 men at a time with only one mold.
We also made soap which was the easiest project of all. Melt the glycerin, add some color and fragrance. Easy and a lot of fun for Brooks to help with.
A few days before the party I had intentions of putting cute little tags on all of the treats inside the favor bag. Well after searching for a few resources to get that underway, I quickly decided it wasn't worth the challenge and not necessary since Brooks could careless!
Turns out I should have labelled the goodies. Funny to us but not to the poor little boy who seriously chomped down on a bar of soap...AND KEPT CHEWING! Bubbles coming out of his mouth! "Seriously?" That's what we all said..."surely my child wouldn't do that". It smells like soap and with one touch of the tongue you might gag plus I tied the little soap baggie with a knot!
That's my hand in his sweet mouth performing the emergency choking care exercise of swiping the mouth. It took some serious mouth washing and sloshing to get all the soap and bubbles out of his teeth. The soap did look a lot like a big gummy lego. Tears finally stopped and he ate the real candy.
And Mr. Nick fully explaining the favor bag and what not to eat
Lets just say I found my foot in my mouth yesterday when Barrett came hysterically crying to me after chewing on a tube of super glue....Really? Yes, really! Thankfully his lips weren't glued together but I found glops of superglue on his teeth and around his mouth. fyi...saliva breaks down the glue. I left the superglue in our crayon container after working on a project with Brooks over the weekend. Lesson learned...boys will do whatever you don't expect them to do and put hazardous things away.
Happy Lego Party for Brooks. We had lots of fun and were blessed to share it with great friends!