Star Wars Party for Liam, part 1

There is soooooo much. This party has consumed me for the past month. I will start with the decorations, then post about the party itself and the boys in their Jedi robes …. ahhh, so much fun.

First of all, everyone and their dog has done a Star Wars party, so I was reluctant to do it, but the more I talked to Liam about it and tried to talk up and suggest other themes, we kept coming back to “Stah Wehs”. So a Star Wars party it was. I got a lot of good ideas from this blog and of course, Pinterest. This is my pinterest board with a bunch of ideas and links.

The first project was the death star piñata, which took us over a week to make (with drying times in between). There are a million death star piñatas out there. The only bit of advice I’d give to others is to reinforce the hook at the top with cardboard – cuz ours came out and then it was a little crazy trying to tie it up with rope. It worked out, but reinforce the top with lots of cardboard from the inside!

 

Painting it at midnight one night. You’d think after all this work I would’ve taken a million close up pictures of the finished product…. nope. I forgot. I have on shot. To someone who is a little OCD, this death star was a nightmare because it was not perfectly round, not perfectly sectioned off and not perfectly symmetrical. But it worked as a piñata.

I made the laser coming out of it with pipe cleaners. Liam specifically requested a “way-zuh”.

This was the scene when you walked in.

I spent forever making brown Jedi robes, but that was worth it. The kids loved the Jedi robes and pool noodle light sabers the best of all the treats, activities or anything else. I think they liked the light sabers because they didn’t have to be careful, they could knock the daylights out of someone, right in the face and it was cool, cuz it was just a pool noodle. Boys are hilarious.

Then there was the food …

The black plastic tablecloth was sprinkled with silver confetti stars. And then there was the cake … Liam literally asked for Captain Rex’s head on a platter. So I had to do it, didn’t I? He’s the birthday boy …oh geez, 7 layers of blue and green cake later, this is what we ended up with:

I haven’t worked a lot with fondant, in fact, this was my first time, and I made my own fondant from a tutorial here and I’d do it again. It was the coolest recipe and it worked well, even though Captain Rex looks like he has sunken in cheeks a little, that was my fault trying to make the helmet indentations.

And then there were the favor bags … 

I made my own stencil by printing out a picture of each head and then using an exacto knife to cut out the negative space.

Admittedly, Han Solo looks a lot like Jim Morrison. But none of these kids knew who The Doors were. 

I made the labels and the sticks are called “Pocky sticks”, I found them, randomly in the Asian isle of the grocery store. I got a package of about 18 for 99 cents. Super cool and pretty tasty.

The rest of the stuff in the favor bags was: a squirt gun (blaster), star wars tattoos, stickers, notebooks and pens all from the dollar spot at michaels 50% off.

And then there was the Jedi Training Obstacle Course in the basement …

This is a black piece of fabric I pinned to the rafters. Thanks to Noah I had the Millennium Falcon and Luke’s X-wing put together from Legos to hang with fishing line.

The kids in front of the black sheet.

This was my interpretation of the pit of carkoon. The kids swung over it on the rope swing I anchored to the rafter.

Close up of the pit of carkoon. I just piled a bunch of cardboard boxes on top of each other and taped them together, then cut teeth in the cardboard and spray painted it red. I covered the boxes with a painting drop cloth I had.

The other side of the basement/obstacle course. They had to climb through the laser beams, then shoot the storm trooper down. I made the storm trooper by piecing together 8.5×11 sheets of black and white print outs. I have the pdf if anyone wants it. The storm trooper ended up being about 4 feet tall. Kid sized.

Well, that does it for the décor. And this post took me forever, so I’ll post part two later …. Happy Birthday to Liam!

 

 

Videos Galore

What the heck have we been up to?? Well, a little crawling, a little sledding and a LOT of dancing courtesy of Noah.

Ray crawls!!!!

Sledding:

Noah and his sweet dance moves (watch out Uncle Ian!!). In case you’re wondering, that dead looking set of legs coming out of the middle of the red couch behind Noah is just Liam – passed out napping.

you’re welcome :)

valentines

Well, I figured it was about time to move on from the depressing posts I’ve been up to lately and post something fun. I’ve been doing a lot of projects that I can’t post here because they are a surprise for someone …. anyway, today we did valentines.

I’ve been looking all over pinterest for good, fun ideas to make for my boys to give out at school. I really love this. Every year I love this. I may not be a “room mom” or be on the PTA but I make valentines for the boys’ classes and really get into it. I usually like having a picture of the boys on the valentine and this year was no exception. Here are the raw cards …

I will have to take apicture after they have stuff on them. Liam’s will have a bracelet he’s giving out to all the girls around his hands and Noah’s will have either glow stix or pixie sticks as his light saber. can’t wait.

I love the outtakes too. I just set up a white sheet in our front room and snapped these shots. Liam wanted to dress up (but didn’t need to) and Noah found his Halloween outfit and came dressed and ready  for pictures. Here are the outtakes:

Liam dressed in totally random dress ups.

I asked Noah to smile and he said, “I can’t, Luke doesn’t really smile that much” …. so many of the pictures are very serious.

But I got this one smiling :)

This is actually my favorite one. I made another valentine with this picture, but didn’t show the finished product yet, I will later. My Noah … he is so intense.

OK, so then Liam saw that noah was really getting into it and giving it his all and Liam wanted to also. It is so funny to see Liam “performing”, he is so much like Daniel and so NOT a performer. So when he willingly puts himself out there and performs, I am always surprised and delighted (I feel the same way when Daniel performs … it is delightful). Anyway, it is like a tiny window into Liam’s quiet and brooding eyes. He has so much hidden and every once in a while, it busts out and this time, I had a camera handy.

He’s not even looking at the camera. He is just engrossed in becoming a real Jedi here.

Happy Valentine’s Day early!

just waiting

So, Ray got up at 4:30 am and then again at 7:30 am and desperately needs a nap but he can’t get himself to fall asleep. I just put him down again, it’s 10 am, but I already tried at 9 am and that was unsuccessful…. so I am basically waiting. He’s crying right now but I have about 10 minutes to kill waiting to see if this nap “takes”. If it doesn’t, it’s back to the drawing board – and such is my life.

I have noticed a few things lately that I want to document:

– it seems as though Ray was one too many people to add to our prayers. Now, when Noah and Liam ask Heavenly Father to bless our family members, they get all confused and it goes something like this, “Please bless Daddy and Noah and mommy and … Ray …. and Noah … and Liam and daddy …. (long pause) …. and thank you for …” and the prayer continues. But 5 people to bless just pushed the memory capacity over its limit and so several people get blessed twice and some not at all. It’s funny.

– Liam says “candy cans” instead of “candy canes”. It’s adorable. I’ve corrected him several times, but it doesn’t seem to matter. oh well. Not going to try too hard to correct that one. It’s cute.

– two nights ago I added something different to our dinner table. I had hosted bookclub the night before so I had special food in the house. So I put together a plate of sliced pears with brie on top and drizzled it with some good balsamic vinegar. I put it on the table and Noah looked at it and said in a straight tone, “well, THAT’s really something”.

Things are not bad around here … dare I say “good”? This Christmas season is shaping up nicely. Last year I hated it. Super busy – I was in charge of the ward Christmas party, I was 3 months pregnant, and there seemed to be no time for the stuff that really matters. This year feels better and we’ve done some good things. I’ll blog about that later … new Christmas traditions, but right now, my ten minutes is almost up and Ray has just hit a new level of desperate in his voice. I want to whine a bit.

I know I should be super grateful, but this morning I wasn’t. I don’t really feel relaxed much these days and I miss quiet. I woke up at 4:30 to Ray crying and then at 7:30 am I woke up to Noah coughing. So now everyone is home from school and I get to care for hyperactive sick kids. It sounds like an oxymoron right? Hyperactive and sick? Well, with Noah, it’s not. They go hand in hand. He rarely slows down. Ray is screaming, Noah is coughing, Liam hasn’t done his chores and I should be getting after him to do it, dishes need to be done, I haven’t worked out in a month, I need to shower ….. and all I want to do is go to my bed and take a midmorning nap. Quietly. Which wouldn’t be able to happen in THIS house …. so I’d have to transport my bed to an alternate universe somewhere, where I don’t have sick kids or responsibilities or a fat tire around my middle.

And I think, “Am I really going to miss this stage of life?” Why do older adults always tell me I’m going to miss this? I kind of hate that. Am I really going to miss nursing? That is something I have never found to be wonderful. Not bonding, not calming, not comfortable ….. nursing Ray is very similar to what nursing Noah was like: they have this way of gnawing at me like I’ve seen dogs gnaw at their chew toys. They both do this thing where they latch on hard with their gums, pull back with their heads and punch their little fists into my breast to really stretch me to my fullest. With that kind of action, it’s no wonder I have stretch marks and my boobs hang near my waist. seriously. And I’ve never been able to fall asleep while nursing them, it’s painful, partly because of the stretching thing they do and partly because they nurse pretty fast. Done in about 5 to 10 minutes, then we switch sides, so no real relaxing, long, warm, bonding nursing time – it’s always fast, furious and painful. Will I miss that? Will I miss sickness that HAS to run it’s course through everyone in the house at separate times so that sickness is in your house for at least a solid month? Will I miss that? Or how about the constant companionship of dishes and laundry needing to be done. A real and constant threat that we won’t have dishes to eat off of or underwear and pants to wear everyday? Miss that??

OK, done whining. Now I’m going to try and bury this post in a bunch of positive and happy ones so as not to be a downer…. but seriously. Sometimes it would be soooooo nice to wake up to a completely silent house…. and not in a eerie and frightening way, like everyone must be dead kind of way, but in an “oh look, it seems as though my children are just healthfully sleeping until 10 am today” kind of way. Is that even possible? I wish. Well, Ray stopped screaming. Blogging works! I would’ve gone and gotten him had it not been for something to distract me and allow me to whine!! Ha!