Star Wars b-day party

AJ is FIVE!  On the morning of his birthday he came bounding into my room, looked himself up and down and declared, “I think I’m taller this morning!!”  So just to make sure, M picked him up and stretched him out until they were both sure that he was the right size for a big 5 year old. 

He picked cinnamon rolls for breakfast & opened his presents before M and the bigger kids left for school.  In our house we have a rule that you aren’t allowed to play video/computer games until you are 5 years old.  The instant they were out the door, he was ready for his first 20 minutes!!!  He tried some of the games he’d seen his siblings play, but soon figured out that they were harder than they looked and we found a few that were more age appropriate.

We sent out light saber shaped invites in silly Star Wars-speak; something like "The Jedi Council formally invites you to celebrate young Padawan AJ's 5th birthday on Sat. March 1st from 10 to noon on his home planet (our address)  Please RSVP via the Force (or our phone #)

We had 5 of his little friends over for a Star Wars birthday party.  I also invited an 11 year old friend of the family who AJ thinks of as a peer, to come dressed as Darth Vader as a surprise for the kids.  He loved surprising the little kids and playing the part.  

It snowed all morning and the high temp for the day was -7F, so I was wondering if I should cancel the party or if there were any possibility of getting a herd of tantans and a Wampa creature or 2 to making a planet Hoth game out of it. J

We borrowed some Star Wars costumes from friends.  Nothing says "fabulously authentic sci-fi party" like a little cross dressing! 

Unbelievably, the dollar store happened to have light and dark brown small mens t-shirts this week, so I cut the dark ones down the center front and voila! instant padawan robes for the boys.

We had storm trooper bowling, (empty soda bottles wrapped with the image of storm troopers)

pompom pod racing (smaller straws would have worked better), 

games using the force, (like making you arms feel like they are floating after you’ve pushed them against a doorway for a while, using static electricity to make balloons stick to the wall or each other, & the illusion that you've cloned your finger by holding it up about a foot from your face and then focusing on something in the distance out of a window) 

rocket balloon launching, 

. . . and my favorite, a garbage compactor, you know, like on the original Star Wars where Leia, Luke & Hans jump through a hole in the wall to escape the storm troopers only to fall into the garbage compactor!?!?!  M scored us 2 refrigerator boxes and we filled one a foot or two deep with all our least dangerous recyclables for a week, plus ball pit balls and a few random pillows. We used the second box as the access chute.  It was a huge hit.  Everyone came out of it with bumps and bruises, but no one cried!

The cake itself was store bought, but then I decorated it with little colored chocolate Star Wars characters and an edible TIE fighter and X wing fighter dueling above the cake.  It was a fun one and each kid got to eat at least one character, but AJ got the X wing.

You want a close up of those little chocolate characters, don't you.  I use the same basic principle as the dino skeletons on J's cake a couple of years ago.

I made extra TIE fighters to send home with everyone, because they were so easy and so tasty.  It was just an old fashion doughnut hole on a lollypop stick, dipped in melted chocolate and then sandwiched between 2 cookies.  When it all hardened, I doodled the details on with melted white chocolate.  The guests also got to take home a giant bubble wand with a duct taped handle that looked like a light saber.

Along with the cake we served Yoda Soda, that is, lime sherbet in Sprite (which we cleverly called “Liquid Force).  

There are so many funny food puns when it comes to Star Wars that it was hard not to serve a full meal of Hans Burgers, 7 Leia Dip, Vaderade, Wookie cookies, Jawa jigglers, & Qui Gon Jin-ger snaps!  If I could have found a good Han Solo action figure, you know I would have incased him in carbonite colored Jello.

Since I didn’t have a good action figure, I had a local copy shop print up some fun posters for me.  You will see 2 of them behind the photo of the guest.  The other one is behind AJ in the photo above in his jedi "robes".

A huge shout out to my fantastic friend, Melanie, who took all of the best photos on this post.  Her son was one of the guests and she stayed to make the party that much more enjoyable for me.