Lego Chima Birthday Party: Keeping it very, very simple

I think I'm lucky that Son is as straightforward as he is.  He doesn't hem and haw about what he wants, but clearly asks for what he wants and hears my ideas on how to make it happen.  This year, he was detertmined to have a Lego Chima birthday party, have his friends come over and race speedors, and have a grand ol' time.

The problem is that his birthday is in December, right before everything happens in the holiday season.  His special day gets crushed in between a million other special holiday events, so generally planning his birthday is one of the last things on my mind.  He's always very focused however, letting me know the specifics of what he wants and how he'd like it to be.

This year - he had very simple request.  He wanted a LEGO CHIMA BIRTHDAY PARTY where everyone built their own kit.

Inwardly I groaned, but since I planned a similar LEGO birthday last year, I gave him similar ideas of what I could manage. Since we had the kits, one per child, costs were going to rise, so only five other guests, no lunch and I'd have on hand my nephew and my student to help troubleshoot things going awry.  Each guest would take their kit home after building and play and we'd call it a day.

His response, "THAT's EXACTLY what I want!"  Phew for me.

The other fortunate thing for me is that his birthday always falls after Black Friday and Cyber Monday for Christmas gift shopping, so generally speaking, I'm able to pick up some kits for a bargain.  This year was no different as the Lego Store had a huge number of speedor sets 50% off and so I snagged a stack of them in order to have plenty for the kids to choose from.  I planned on returning the rest, but then Daughters each wanted one, as did my teenage assistants.

Activities were planned and all I needed to worry about was food.  Son only cares that the food is all stuff he can eat so we went with a super simple menu with my new addition of "chima jello" which ended up grossing me out (artifical flavors and colors) but looked totally awesome in the cups.  Kids had a mixed response to it with one child eating all the jello while Son freaked out when someone told him his tongue was blue.  If I were to change anything, I'd make layered jello in individual cups as making the finger jello was a lot stickier and messier than I preferred.

Here is a very simple outline of what I did with some pdf's of things that I thought were fun.

Decorations
Son colored his own pages from the Lego website and taped them to the wall.
I made a Happy Birthday banner with "chima-ish" lettering.  I printed the letters on blue paper and just attached it to string.
Blue tablecloth on the table

Activities
Color pages of Lego Chima characters.  This is great to do while waiting for all your guests to arrive.
Build Lego speedorz.  I had a nice collection and selection of ones that I had gotten 50% off.  I have the kids build them on large baking sheets with high sides as it keeps the pieces organized into individual areas and no one fights.  It seems to minimize the loss and confusion of pieces.

Race and play Lego speedorz. I had an empty floor space where the boys could race and test out each other's Speedorz.
Snack time!


Menu
Rice Krispy Pops - made these and put them on a bed of blue sprinkles to simulate the chi water

Chi Jello- yellow and blue finger jello

Hummus and chips
Sacred Chi water (Really just bottled water, but I printed blue labels with the words sacred chi water on them.)

Two hours later, party over!

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