These boys had so much fun running around in their Jedi robes. In fact, I wish I had just let them do that … for like 2 hours. Instead, I spent all this time coming up with a Jedi Training Obstacle course, which only lasted a few minutes and was never seen or used again. Also, I made too much food. There were just snacks, but they were sugary, so by the time cake and ice cream came around, half the kids said they didn’t want ay cuz they were full. Which is a huge shame because then I was stuck with 7 layers of a massive helmet head cake. oh man, I’m making Daniel take that to work to get rid of it. I wonder if the people at Ford will be shocked to see a Captain Rex helmet head of cake in the break room.

Anyway, here are a bunch of pictures of the playing that went on. There are probably too many, but it will make you feel like you were really there

The faces in the above picture crack me up. It was very intense in the backyard.

Noah’s stance in this picture above is like a classic fencing move or something. You can see that Nicholas is about to get it right in the kisser.

It looks like it was a warm day, right? It wasn’t. But the sun came out a little in between clouds and it stayed around 58-60 degrees, so not terrible.

Daniel took all these outdoor shots and he said watching the boys fight was like watching a flock of birds. They would change direction and all move in a flock-like formation.

This is Jedi Training, part one. We had some older friends, Antonio and Alejandro be our Jedi Masters and they taught us some moves.

And then Darth (Daniel) showed up. Daniel was awesome. He took Liam’s 4 year old Darth Vader costume and pinned it to a black shirt and got the belt on and made it work. Then he took a serious beating from the kids. It was hilarious to watch. Here are too many pictures of the onslaught:

And yes, that is Daniel light sabering the Birthday boy.

Liam landing the final blow. That’s my boy, hitting him while he’s down.

Jumping over the pit of carkoon.

The piñata fiasco … the hook at the top came out, so Daniel tied a rope around it and it worked. Not that the kids cared. They were too busy fighting each other in the front yard.

We finally gave Liam the light saber stick that was much tougher and had him finish it off. Look at Alonzo’s face … he’s excited!

Funny story: So, we lit up the candles on the cake and were about to start singing hapy birthday to Liam, but he immediately blew out the candles. So we started again. We got about 75% through the song again and he blew them out again. Oh well. we gave up singing.

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!