A Lego Party

What little boy can resist Legos? Mine sure can't; they seem to be all the thinks about right now. (Well, that and bodily functions - he is seven, after all.) I shouldn't have been surprised when he asked for a Lego themed birthday party this year. Did I ever have a lot of fun planning this one! There are a ton of great Lego party ideas out there: here, here, here, here and here, but I also wanted to do a few things on my own. Also, I didn't want to spend a ton of money.

I decided on a palate of bright Lego colors with lots of red and yellow. I was really happy that I actually remembered where I stored the pennant banner I made for this party. I knew it would come in handy!

I wish I could remember where I found all the Lego photos I used as the wall decorations. Some are from here and here, but the best ones came from this guy. He has a ton of wonderful photos of his Lego creations, and he allows them all to be downloaded. My son loved them so much, we actually sent him a thank-you email. All we had on the walls were the photos, balloons, and a banner made using the Lego font. (A similar font is available here.)

I made the banner using Word 2010. The new features in 2010 made getting the LEGO logo coloring just right: Lego font, black letters, yellow outline, red highlight. Each letter was on a separate page and I used my paper cutter to trim away the extra paper. I didn't bother stringing my banner on yarn, I just taped the letters to the wall.

The table decorations were a snap, or at least they "snapped" together easily. (Are you groaning or laughing?) I used a yellow table cloth and placed several Lego scenes around the table. Oh yes, and the Lego candy was a huge hit. Both the kids loved that they could actually build with pieces.

Each person's seat was marked with a place card, held up by a simple three block card holder.

I used actual Legos to stamp on the cards. The bottom of the brick made the rectangular outline, and the top stamped the circles. I found the letter stamps at a garage sale on the island a few years back for $3.00. I'm so glad I brought them home with me!

Probably the most fun part of the table decorations were the minifigs at each place. (For all you non-Lego people out there, minifigs are the little Lego people.) With the help of my friend's son, Parker, each person at the party was greeted by their minifig self when they sat down at the dinner table. You may not be able to tell, but that little plastic character in the photo above is a dead ringer for my mother! I loved them so much, I took the ones for my husband, the kids and myself and snapped a few "family photos."

What do you think, should I send that first photo out with our Christmas card? I think it would be a hoot...

Mackinac Moments

Fall on Mackinac the year has been delightful. Absolutely delightful! It's been gorgeous - warm and sunny every day for the past two weeks. I'm sure there's rain in our future, but this has been the nicest fall we've had in years.

How have things been in your neck of the woods?

Do You See It?

I was riding my bike home the other day, and this dray carrying a load of paving stones past me near the top of Grand Hill. I felt like Richard Dryfus' character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Remember how he kept seeing Devil's Tower in everything. I kept staring at that load of rocks thinking,

"The shape of that rock looks so familiar."

So I road up to the dray to get a better look at it. It was just a piece of stone, packaged with about eight or ten other pieces. None of them looked cut, or treated in any special way. They just looked like randomly shaped paving stones headed to someones yard.

That's when it hit me:

It wasn't a perfect Mackinac Shape, but it was so close. Now it's got me wondering if the person who is walking on it every day has noticed...

It was one of those days where I was thrilled that I actually remembered to put my camera in my backpack that morning. Remembering actually was a big deal. Given some changes that have happened at work this year, I'm going in about 15 different directions. I actually left the island this week to go to a doctor's appointment and left my overnight bag in my bike cart on the dock! I couldn't believe it - I've lived here 20 years and that was the first time I've ever left the island without my stuff. Did I ever feel silly...