Another day, another party hosted by Anne the party planner. This summer, I was helping brainstorm ideas for her son’s first birthday party. We both agreed that “Turning One Is Fun” is corny and overdone. Rather than a rhyming theme, I came up with the idea of doing something with Legos, and Anne loved that.
Fast-forward a few months, and she just pulled off the absolute cutest Lego-themed party (scroll down for photos). Below are the links to pictures from other parties Anne has planned:
Nursing/Healthcare Themed Party
Turning 3 Under the Sea
Fiesta-Themed Gender Reveal Party
Let Love Grow Bridal Shower
Turning 2 With Winnie the Pooh
Pink and Blue Gender Reveal Party
Fall-Themed Bridal Shower
Love Is Brewing Wedding Shower
The Lego party was an outdoor gathering, to which Anne invited family and a few close friends.
Anne and her husband served Lego pizza and made a fire for guests to roast hotdogs.
Lego character balloons…
They did a cake smash, but the birthday boy wasn’t too into it. He just sat calmly and picked at the icing.
Lego sugar cookies…
Lego rice krispie marshmallow treats
Lemonade in a Lego face pitcher…
Cute decor…But in all seriousness, has anyone ever stepped on a Lego in bare feet? It’s extremely painful. Walking across Legos is no easy feat!
Table decor…
Anyone seen The Lego Movie? Be sure to fast-forward through the “Everything is Awesome” song, or you will have it playing in your head for days.
Lego napkin holder…
Plastic cutlery in colorful cups…
Lego plate holders…
Guess how many Legos game…
First-year milestones…
More decor…
Life-sized Legos (boxes covered in butcher paper)…
Gear-shaped decorations…
That is so cute! And yes, I have stepped on Legos with my bare feet. Oh the pain, especially the really small ones!
Why do parties need themes? Why not have everyone over for food and cake? Some of the things you've shown with these parties are a waste of time, money, and resources. Parties should be about people, not decor.
I do agree that a theme is not the main goal of a party. That being said, planning get-togethers is one of Anne's hobbies that she enjoys doing in her spare time. She's also really good at using what she has on hand. (Some of it, like the chalkboards, is actually decor left over from my wedding, as we did all the decorating ourselves.)
For her kids' birthday parties, she usually ends up just buying a few small items at the dollar store. The food is usually homemade, and the grandmas are always eager to bring food, too. Lol.
Ellie
Themed parties are fun, why do you need to complain about what someone else did for their child's party?
Being kind of old, tired, and sufferring from living with my own emotional attachment to my clutter of excess baggage this kind of scares me. A lot of potential clutter here after the party. Ann seems like the type who would want to save things to use again. This would create a storage (room?) of seldom used stuuf, yikes! I knew a lady when I was a kid who had stuff stacked on tables in plain view, another friends mom had occupied their main floor guest room with all her piles of stuff, my family had an old out of use clean old coal room and an actual frieght shed for our stuff. This summer I went to a mom and pop shop brand of family restaurant where mom had stuff on restaurant tables near the wall and also the sit up counter was stacked with stuff. Clutter isn't cute and not everyone likes to just ignore it for the rest of the year. What's yours' and Annes' methods of coping with the clutter of stuff a party like this could/would generate?
How did they do the dots on the legislation?
I assume you mean Legos. They're M&M's.
Yep, they are M&Ms.
Ellie
redirect that question to the government
This is my least favorite of Anne's parties. I thought her decorations weren't as nice for this one as all the others. However, I'm sure everyone had a great time.
There's only so much you can do with Legos. I thought a 1 yr. old wouldn't care what a party was like. All that stuff was for the grown-ups, except the un-smashed smash cake.
Anne should brush up on her cake and cookie decorating skills if she intends to keep this up. Studying the Wilton Method helped me a lot. There are books and courses (at craft stores or at community colleges) that can teach you decorating skills, how to handle frosting, good frosting recipes for piping decorations, etc. You don't need to become a professional at this stuff, but any amount of teaching and a little practice can really help anyone who does cakes and cookies, the way Anne does. Not a criticism, a suggestion.
I suggest hanging out at the "Bake at 350" blog. I have for years, and it's helped me a lot.
The cake was a smash cake, that's not something you spend hours laboring over. I thought the cookies were really cute.
Very creative and unique decorations! My sons loved Legos when they were young and I wish I would have had such clever ideas to come up with a Lego themed party. It looks like it was really fun!
Thanks, I'll tell her you said that. Anne's husband also loved Legos growing up, so that was part of the reason behind the theme for the party. I'm sure my nephew will start to love them, too, when he is older. Like father like son. Lol.
Ellie
"Corny and over done" is a statement that should be deleted from this text. Maybe there are some parents or guardians who used that theme for their party and deserve credit for the nice thing they did, not criticism. By the same token it looks like Anne planned and prepared the best party she could to celbrate her sons first birthday. And it looks like turning one was fun there!
hmm, I wonder who had a "turning 1 is fun" party for their child?
Lighten up a bit would you? This is Ellie's blog, she can say what she wants.
It's all good but lets hope the cvhild does not choke on a lego. (There's always something to criticize.)
Isn't the comments section of 'Ellie's blog', there especially for the 'blog readers' to have their say about Ellie's post? So is this comment really all that out of line and faulty?
You shouldn't tell Ellie she needs to delete a sentence from her blog, especially since it's true. "turning one is fun" Is very corny, and lots of people use it. Saying that isn't taking credit from parents who've used it, it's just just a fact.
Older people should supervise babies playing with Legos. Ann had a great idea to make them build small quick projects! Congratulations on a smart fun birthday party!
ok but i put on hedonistic, narcissistic bashes for my kids too and now they are grown up and dont look at photos for long, i know that it is not the whole focus. What else could you advise, or ask older adults, what is really important to do for kids and life as well. To give meaning to be really proud of, to all those years raising the kids. Parties are just the icing on the cake.
That first year milestone board was cute. (That information could go on an invitation so people could know what to get for a birthday present. But how many bottles of bubble bath foes one boy want to get?!)
So fun…enjoyed the pictures!