Craving Fresh: A Lego Elves Birthday party

L, on the right, at her 7th Birthday party.

Our eldest daughter, L, celebrated her 7th Birthday on Sunday. She was allowed to invite seven friends for her seven years of living (an idea I got from Animal Miracle Vegetable).

We chose to hold the party at home, which was slightly nerve-wracking since our house is small and it would have been chaos if bad weather trapped us inside. Happily, God blessed us with a beautiful sunny weekend, so we were able to spread outdoors. Phew!

Our party theme was Lego Elves, since we all love playing with Lego around here. I made a Welcome to Elvendale sign for the front door, and L's little sister and baby brother got in on the crafty action too, making gorgeous signs for the bottom half of the front door...

Because we are trying to reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill, we didn't use balloons or other disposable party decorations. Instead, I made flower and ice sculptures to adorn the path leading up to the front door. (I just mixed flowers with water and froze them in ice cream containers. Easy, and pretty. Perfect for an elvish-themed party.)

Paul, being the games-master he is, designed a Lego Elves themed party game, which all the kids loved.

You can see in the next photo, Paul is holding a treasure box with four coloured keyholes on it - one for each of the Lego Elves elements - air, earth, water and fire. Paul face painted all the party guests as Lego Elves, and them sent them off to find the key pieces (Duplo) and assemble them to unlock the box.

Air key pieces were hiding on top of the trampoline, which Paul had covered with white sheets. Kids had to bounce (fly) and knock them off to collect them. The round purple sign clued kids in on where to look.

Water key pieces were hiding under bubbles in the paddling pool.

Earth key pieces hid under a pile of mulch. Paul and I were impressed with the determination of the team who dug those pieces out.

Fire was my favourite challenge. Kids had to crawl through a maze in Paul's dark office to find the red fire pieces, with only a couple of torches to light their way. It looked so fun.

On the back of each of the round element symbols, Paul drew a diagram which showed how to assemble the Duplo blocks into a key. Once the four teams had assembled their keys, they were able to unlock the box and retrieve their treasure (golden Cadbury crunchie bars and other lollies).

For the children who wanted a quiet activity to do, we laid out Lego on the coffee table.

A couple of girls got so involved with Lego building, they didn't even want to stop and eat afternoon tea, and it was a sweet spread. Literally.

I made mini vanilla cupcakes and iced them with white chocolate icing, sprinkles and sugar butterflies. I also made ambrosia, which we served in small paper cups. We had to have fairy bread, since that is Paul's prerequisite party food and we also served carrot and cucumber crudites and crackers with dip so there was at least one healthy choice on the table.

My sister-in-law, Mandy, made a beautiful Lego Elves Birthday cake (she's so talented), and I quickly heated croissants in the oven for another quick savoury snack. It wasn't the healthiest of party spreads, but hey, if there's ever a time to have party food, it's at a party. We served it all on actual crockery from our kitchen (no disposable plates in sight).

After everyone had eaten and played their Lego Elves game, they played Pass the Parcel on the trampoline (L's favourite party game), and then we took all the kids over to our local school to burn off energy on the adventure playground. Again, I was so grateful for the good weather that allowed us to do that.