Tanner's Minecraft Birthday Party

Tanner at his first Blue and Gold Banquet

Tanner turned 8 years old on February 17th.  Somehow, I have managed to not plan a birthday party for him with friends before this age!  We always do a family party with relatives, but I have been taking it easy on friend parties.  Anyway, as his birthday approached, I realized that this was the year I needed to do a party because he was turning 8, and that is a big deal in our church because it's the age you can get baptized.  I did really cool parties for his older siblings when they turned 8 (Kayla's was Webkinz, Hunter's was Harry Potter), and I wanted to do something special for Tanner too.  It was easy to pick a theme since he loves Minecraft.  Thanks to Google, I found loads of ideas on the web and tried to pick the simplest ones for the party.  I have a tendency to go way overboard, so I was proud of myself for mostly keeping it simple.  It was a fun party and I hope it made his 8th birthday memorable.  I'm missing some of the photos that were taken on a different camera, but here are a few from my phone:

First activity was to make Minecraft faces out of small squares of paper.  They boys actually enjoyed this more than I thought they would.  (Hint to others considering this activity-cutting all of those squares was very time-consuming, and I guessed the wrong colors they would want, and had to frantically pull out more cardstock and a square puncher at the party to keep up with the color demands!):

Next the boys had dinner--"Golden Apples," "Carrots," and pizza.  They played a Minecraft bingo game while they ate.

Next up was "Musical Minecraft," but I didn't get photos.  The kids walked around on Minecraft pictures (like a cake walk) and stopped on a picture when the music stopped.  We pulled a number out of a hat and whoever was on that number was "out."  Really, they got to fill their minecraft block at the candy bar first.  Then the block went into the goodie bags.  Next they colored minecraft pictures while waiting for everyone else to finish the game.  Each boy got their own set of crayons for the goodie bag too.

I saw some REALLY amazing cake ideas, but I kept it simple with homemade cupcakes from a mix.  The cupcake toppers were part of a free set of minecraft printables I found online.  All the signs for the food also came from that set (link below).

I bought a set of papercraft minecraft animals for the kids to put together, but when I tried it out beforehand, I realized it would be too hard for them to do without a lot of help.  Kayla put them all together before the party and we let the boys pick a couple to put in their goodie bags.

Our final activity was to go mining.  I froze plastic jewels in layers of ice and the boys used "pick-axes" (mini craft hammers) to mine the jewels out.  The jewels also went in the goodie bags.

It was a relatively simple party, compared to some of the ideas I saw online, but it was plenty of work for me. :)  I think the key to its success was limiting the number of people Tanner could invite.  I knew from experience that 8 boys would be plenty!

In case anyone else is looking, here are some links to the places I found ideas from:

Free printables:
http://catchmyparty.com/blog/free-minecraft-party-printables-from-printabelle

Other Minecraft party posts:

http://parties4ever.blogspot.com/2013/03/minecraft-party.html

http://mommadanddaboyz.net/2013/04/16/minecraft-party-games/

https://ichooseawesome.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/epic-minecraft-party/

http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/html/video_game_party_7.html