Andrew's Minecraft LEGO Birthday Party

Andrew's celebrated his birthday this weekend with some friends from school, kinderprep, and his class at church! 

We held the birthday party at Play-Well Teknologies where we also held his Star Wars LEGO birthday party last year. The studio was redone over the past year and had an even better set up this year than last.

Andrew and friends had so much fun making Minecraft projects with their teacher while Kevin and I just set up food, played with Catie a bit, and relaxed. Such an easy party!

Andrew was really excited about the creeper cake I hade made for him. Thank you Safeway!

Originally I was only going to have healing potion labels on the drinks but Andrew told me I needed more variety. He was totally right. This morning I stuck some new labels on some of the water bottles and the kids LOVED them... especially the invisibility potions.

The TNT was also a big hit.

After we built with LEGO for 1.5 hours then the kids ate snacks, pizza, and cupcakes. The 30 minutes of party time just flew by.

The kids all went home with very simple Minecraft goodie bags and we cleaned up! Kudos to my awesome neighbor Stefanie who gave me several of her Minecraft themed party decorations to borrow. Saved me some work!

Kevin wasn't super stoked to spend his birthday chaperoning a party of 17 first graders, but he was a good sport since there were no other dates available. We'll be celebrating his birthday again tomorrow!

Happy Birthday to Andrew (belatedly) and Kevin!

Hooray! No more birthdays until next October.

Andrew's EASIEST and BEST EVER LEGO Birthday Party

I love when the words EASY and BEST EVER go together.

Remember this LEGO birthday party when Andrew turned four? It was definitely the best ever... but it was not easy.

I love putting 150% into throwing parties and fun events, but I've realized that when it comes to my kid's birthday parties I want to enjoy the party, have fun with my kid's friends, and not be stressed.

We discovered the best place ever for LEGO-obsessed kids called Play-Well Teknologies. There is one about 20 minutes from our house and Andrew takes a weekly class there.

Although the birthday party package is not cheap it was worth every penny to me with how fun and easy the party was today, Hooray!

I was sick for a good chunk of last week. I thought I was better on Thursday and then Friday was the worst day of the week. Nothing contagious, just a bad reaction to too many meds from earlier in the week when I was actually sick that made me feel terrible! Kevin was sweet and stayed home from his YouTube ski trip to watch the kids while I just slept a good chunk of Thursday and Friday.

If I had been throwing an intense party I probably would've had to cancel it... but I woke up today about 75% better. Hooray!

We had basketball this morning... then t-ball for two hours... and then I put goodie bags together and cleaned our house and we were off to Play-Well for Andrew's party! We also hired our fabulous babysitter Melissa to watch the two younger kiddos because I've decided that birthday parties are a celebration for me too... and a LEGO place filled with tiny bricks is no place for a crazy 16 month old or his emotional little sister.

Here are some photos from Andrew's Star Wars LEGO birthday party today!

The party included about 20-30 minutes of free LEGO play. Then the instructor taught the kids how to make an AT-AT walker (from Star Wars) and they added battery packs to the walkers and got to drive them around the room.

Since Andrew knew how to make them from class, he zoomed through making his and helped his friends work on theirs too. Such a sweetheart!

After everyone had their walker made the boys had a battle with them... replicating The Battle of Hoth... Andrew was in heaven. The kids had a great time!

Meanwhile Cara and Aunt Jessie were my party helpers and Kevin was my good-looking Party co-host & pizza orderer extraordinaire. The table looked pretty fancy with with ONE tablecloth I bought. :) Somehow I thought 16 kids could all share one tablecloth... Not my finest moment.

After a few worrisome minutes... the pizza finally arrived and the kids inhaled all of the pizza plus my super snazzy Star Wars Cupcakes (courtesy of Safeway and Williams Sonoma).

Andrew had really wanted Darth Vader rings and light sabers on the cupcakes... which I ordered on Wednesday and should've arrived for the party. In my sick haze I missed an email about my payment not working... so on Friday when we realized that they wouldn't arrive in time from Amazon, we cancelled the order and SUPER DAD Kevin drove to Walnut Creek to grab some of the last Star Wars cupcake liners & figures before they all got sold out (apparently they were on sale for under $5 last week and were flying off the shelves).

All I kept hearing from Andrew was that it was the best birthday party ever once the party started. His friends seemed pretty happy too.

I sure love this cute kid! Andrew was so appreciative of all of the presents he got, the nice notes his friends wrote him, and he just was seriously the happiest kid all day today. LOVE HIM! What a fun birthday party!

Now hopefully he goes to bed at some point... instead of staying up all night putting together some of the new LEGO kits he got at his birthday party. I think we might need to hide them.

Lego Engineering

A few months ago a friend told us about a local spot created by engineers that was filled with Legos.

I've been dying to take Andrew and I managed to pull up their website the other week and check out their after school classes.

Lego Jedi Engineering was the first one I saw. I read the class description to Kevin and he said something to the effect of I don't care how much that costs we are totally signing Andrew up.

If you didn't know already from seeing my photos on Instagram... Andrew is obsessed with Legos... and most specifically with Star Wars Legos.

Last week he had his first class. They each made their own forest of Endor with Legos (the forest where the Ewoks live). He was so excited to show us his creation when he picked us up. This is him explaining it to Kevin.

Meanwhile, the class is only 5 minutes away from the mall... so as you can imagine, this is a win/win for me too. Catie, Ryan, and I get to spend and hour and a half once a week roaming the mall eating Mrs. Fields cookies.

Today we found a sweet deal on jewelry, so both Catie and I came home with a new purchase. :)

Ryan came home with a chocolate covered face (good thing I brought him an extra shirt).

We also made sure to visit Olaf at JCP. The kids think it is like Disneyland.

Love it! Best day of the week.