Wooden City

I have posts started/planned but we've been passing around back to school germs over here so getting anything finished is just not happening this week! Good thing there is so much inspiration to be had around the internet!

I love this wooden chalkboard city by dandee. This would make a great DIY holiday gift for the little ones in your lives. I think this would even make a great cityscape for Super Heros or LEGO city!

The full tutorial can be found on Hello Bee

Crafts

I recently came across this site that has tons of craft inspiration. 123 Preppy posts step by step videos and/or photos (I'm more of a photo person myself) and they have a lot of great crafts! Here are some that caught my eye

Loch Ness Monster

Dinosaur Fossil

Ball Blower

Goal Keeper Game

Knight Helmet

If you have or find a site or project you think we'd love feel free to email it to me! 

Olympics!

My boys are so excited for the Olympics this year! They love seeing all the ads out and can't wait to watch some of the events. To wear out their energy a bit before they watch tv how about hosting your own olympics?

Love this party from A Small Snippet SO much! Lots more great photos here

DIY medals from Collage Collage

DIY torch from Domsetic Goddesque

This awesome party even has some great printables! from Bird's Party Blog

Are you/your kids getting excited for the Summer Olympics?

LEGO Party by Idea! Event + Style

Today we have a special guest post from Idea! Event + Style. I saw this party on Catch my Party and stalked Idea! Event + Style Facebook page so she could tell us more about this party.

Sure, it's fun to plan girls' parties. Ruffles, lace, pink, girly, tea parties... what's not to love? But I love a good challenge when it comes to styling an event. And it's ALWAYS challenging to take a classic theme and give it a colorful, creative, modern twist. This is exactly what I set out to do with my son's LEGO MANIA 6th birthday party this year! I wanted it to be as creative and fun as a princess party could be. Tell me what you think?

The invitations were packaged in a clear, plastic favor box. The idea behind this was to introduce a 'block' of some kind right from the start. And then of course we had to add 6 LEGO blocks inside since Neil was turning 6! These are available to order in my Etsy shop if you're looking for some cool LEGO-inspired invitations!

The kids' tables were set with a simple, modern vision. My favorite items were the hand-made LEGO plates that were made to resemble LEGO heads. These will be available to purchase in my shop soon too! Just email me at jasmine@ideaeventstyle.com if you need them RIGHT NOW!

The LEGO snack/dessert table included LEGO block shaped sandwiches (so easy and a big hit!), vanilla cake pops, LEGO ninjago cookies, veggie/ranch cups, fruit skewers and 'building fuel' aka lemonade. And cake of course!

The fabulous LEGO cake stand came from my 16 month old daughter's room ;) The modern LEGO candles are available here... and they come in a 6 pack, can you believe that? The entire printable DIY package will be available in my Etsy shop soon as well. Again, email me at jasmine@ideaeventstyle.com if you need it sooner!

Vanilla Push Up Pops

These are all the rage in the party world right now. And rightly so. They are super fun to make and eat! All I did was mix up cake batter, divide into separate bowls with the right food coloring. Bake mini cupcakes, use white frosting as glue and assemble in the push up pop container. The kids LOVED these!

I hope you enjoy planning your own LEGO party as much as I did. My little guy was very excited and all his little friends had a fab time... what more could a Mom/Party Planner ask for? Enjoy some of their pictures below...

Thanks so much to Idea! Event + Style for posting this amazing party for us. Check out their website and Facebook page for more party inspiration!

Rocket Ship Party

I couldn't NOT share this party by Hello My Sweet featured on one of my favorite party blogs Spaceships and Laserbeams. The details are crazy amazing.

Please go check out all the details on this party, more photos, and even how they made some of the amazing details. Huge thanks to Hello My Sweet (check out their store) and Spaceships and Laserbeams for the awesome inspiration!

Zap! Zoom! Pow! A fun new app!

While recently reading Somerset Memories I found an article about an app called Halftone. Once the boys caught a glimpse of it they new they wanted to try it out!

From the Halftone site:

Halftone turns your photos into unique, vintage comics that friends and family will love! More than a simple “photo filter” app, Halftone makes it easy to add paper styles, captions, speech balloons, graphic stamps, and fonts (including built-in comic fonts). Your final image can be sent via e-mail, uploaded directly to Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, and Flickr, shared with apps like Instagram, Camera+, and Color Splash, printed, and even sent as a real, physical postcard through the mail!

Basically it allows you to turn your photos into a comic! The boys made some of themselves but I made one too

I love a fun phone app find!

Sometimes Parties Don't Go As Planned

I thought I'd write a little post since I talked about my boy's sleepover on Facebook. We had planned to have 4 boys plus my 2 over for a sleepover with all kinds of amazing sleepover activities and of course a midnight snack bar. However, things change.

We had planned on moving beforehand and were supposed to be settled in by then. Things changed and we were in the new house but just barely. There was nothing there. So we brought a few things over so that we could sleep there since that was the address on the invite. Then we realized that no one had RSVP'd except for one boy. I didn't want to plan a million activities for 6 kids when we may have none. So I bought decorations and got snacks last minute. We picked out some things to put together a few goodie bags. 

1 boy did come and my boy decided that to make it more of a special sleepover we'd go to a pizza place with an arcade and then to the movies (yes we did have the other boys' parents permission). So we did. We saw BRAVE which they all liked and then came home for late ice cream cupcakes.

We did end up doing a few activities and I had my camera BUT forgot my memory card so iPhone photos it is.

Our birthday table set up

After the movie we came home and had a glow party. We put glow sticks into white balloons, had glow necklaces and glasses from the dollar section at Target

In the morning - a part of the party my son was most excited - cereal lol! We don't ever buy cereal so he was super excited to buy several different types to choose from along with some cinnamon rolls on his birthday party morning.

Then we went swimming at 8am and made light sabers out of pool noodles.

In the end he loved his little sleepover. His Harry Potter party last year was a bit more involved so having it a little easier this year may have just been what we needed. Just some more proof that we aren't perfect over here either ;)

Book Report

It's not often that we find a new book series that they boys are REALLY into. They are more of the World Records, Gross Facts, or Animal Non-fiction type of readers (with some Star Wars thrown in). Yes they like the "usual" Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Rick Riordan series but I was so excited to find something new that I thought we'd share it with you!

The Carole Marsh Mysteries - Real Kids, Real Places

We first bought these two for our travels The Mystery in Hawaii and Disney World

 

Here's what my 9 year old has to say about the books:

I like Carole Marsh Mysteries because they are fun to read. They have mystery and real information about the place where the story is. It's also cool because you can apply to be a character in an upcoming book. The characters in the books are based on real kids. I've read the mystery of Hawaii and Disney World but I want to read more of the series. I especially want to read The Mystery in Hollywood, The Mystery in New York, and The Mystery at Area 51. I think the books are good for boys and girls!

He really has been talking about them quite a bit! He's got his brother interested now too. The suggested age is 8 and up and that's probably right on. He is an advanced reader so these are pretty easy for him but who doesn't like a quick entertaining read?!