Ryan's Awesome LEGO Movie Birthday Party

When we first saw the preview this summer for the new LEGO Movie, and that it had an opening date of February 7, 2014, Ryan pretty much decided then and there that his birthday party would involve a trip to see what he just new would soon become his favorite movie ever.

Which worked out perfectly well, because we took a trip to San Antonio on his actual birthday to see the San Antonio Spurs play a pretty incredible game against the Sacramento Kings.

This was an awesomely easy party to plan. The trickiest part was making sure we knew exactly when the Alamo Drafthouse put their tickets on sale to ensure I cold get a whole row of seats together.

Invitations were by evite, with a little help from the images found at the official LEGO movie website.

I ordered this LEGO brick cake from our favorite bakery, which I topped off with LEGO candles (they even came eight to a package - score!).

We updated Ryan's number plate he displays in his room (and which was first created for his 5th birthday). And Ryan brought down a lot of his built LEGOs and other LEGO-themed decor from his room. I didn't really take a good picture of those, but you can kind of see it in the picture below, on our mantel.

Add in a few balloons, and we were set.

The birthday boy had received some new LEGO movie LEGO sets for his birthday already, so he set those up as the centerpiece for the table.

I tried to arrange the plates to look like a LEGO. Don't think anyone noticed.

I found these great water bottle labels at etsy. Usually I can get my husband to create some for us, but I asked too late, and I fell in love with these designs, so it was $5 well spent in my book.

I gave everyone a twenty minute window to show up before we left for the theater, so to pass the time, we put the Clutch Powers LEGO DVD. Most of the boys ended up just playing basketball outside instead, however.

We gathered everyone together to remind them that they had to be quiet during the movie. I was more than a little afraid of the Drafthouse's strict no talking rules with this bunch!

The Drafthouse had recommended I create my own menus for the kids to fill out to make it easier for the servers, since the kids are often not near adults when ordering.

Because it was opening weekend for the movie, the Drafthouse had put out some huge LEGO tables for the kids to play with while we waited for our theater to open.

Finally, the doors opened, and we headed inside to take our seats.

Blurry, but cute, photo

One nice thing about the Drafthouse is that they create their own pre-movie entertainment that is usually themed to the movie itself, so for the first thirty minutes before the previews, we got to watch a lot of LEGO videos. The boys were so enthralled wiht the pre-show and the movie itself, I needed not worry about getting kicked out.

Group picture after watching the most awesome movie ever!

Then it was home for cake and presents.

The goody bags:

And the contents of the goody bags: a LEGO Movie mystery minifigure, a LEGO pencil, a LEGO eraser, some LEGO movie stickers, and a candy bar in a LEGO wrapper made by Carl.

One happy birthday boy.

And then it was done. We had a ton of fun, and we felt very blessed that the LEGO gods decided to open their movie so close to his birthday.