Star Wars Party

Kylen's ninth birthday party was a blast! Pun intended! This year he decided on a Star Wars theme. Greg had already been working on a program to simulate words moving through space like at the beginning of the movies. He spent about a week on the invitations, which were DVDs. By far the most involved invitations we've ever done, but people loved them! We even printed DVD face and case covers. The movie was 17 minutes long. It started and ended with a video clip of Kylen at two years of age talking about Star Wars LEGOs. VERY CUTE!!! Then, Greg used his program to do a little sequence with a story about Episode 9: Return of the Birthday. This was followed by several scenes from the movies with our own voice-overs talking about the party. For example, the scene where Yoda was cooking, we had Luke asking about the food at the party. It turned out pretty funny!

Decorating was a breeze. We already have black and white decor which I use during May/June in honor of Greg's birthday/Father's Day/graduation month. We filled the shelves with Star Wars LEGO models and had mostly Star Wars pictures on the walls. The only decorations we needed to buy were a birthday banner, black tablecloth, and confetti stars to scatter. We used balloons and crepe paper left-over from previous years. We also wore costumes. Greg was Han Solo, I was Princess Leia, and Kylen was a Jedi Knight.

Food included Dog Sabers (hot dogs), Cheese Sabers (string cheese on sticks), light and dark chips, Light Sauce (guacamole), Dark Sauce (salsa), and Sith Salad (pasta salad), Yoda Soda (blue punch), and Darth Mault (red punch).

We kicked off with an R2-D2 Demo, which was our gift to Kylen. The first thing Greg did was to ask if he remembers Darth Vader, which we finally figured out puts him in a VERY disagreeable mood. Once you do that, he refuses to obey commands. However, he still garnered lots of laughs with his stubborness and head shaking. Very popular with the girls. After the party, they whisked him off to another room for additional "training." Kylen took this picture:

Next, the children were ushered downstairs for a couple of games. The first was called Droid Debris. We wrapped several small prizes (glow-in-the-dark balls and stars, fake gems, a few dollars) in wads of aluminum foil and scattered over the floor. The kids were divided into two teams: Empire and Republic. Each end had six circles, half in one color and half in the other. Smaller children were placed at the end closer to the aluminum balls. On the signal, they were to gather as many balls as possible and place in their own circles. Then, all the balls were counted. The final score was actually extremely close, something like 70 to 66! Of course, they got to keep their treasures. Plus, we gave them each a stretchy flashing ring.

We had the kids form two lines and shoot Corellian Space Monkeys (Screaming Monkeys) into a target with holes. You pull the arms back on two fingers and sling-shot them through the air. It took us a couple of runs to realize the target was a tad too far away. Only a couple of kids made it in the holes. Prizes were large polished rocks.

We all came back upstairs and played Name that Sound. Greg had recorded lots of clips from the movies such as blaster fire, Jabba the Hut talking, etc. and threw in a few extras for fun: snoring, cow mooing, the Road Runner. Prizes were water yo-yos. Greg gave all the rewards neat-sounding names and background stories, such as what planet he found them on, etc.

Thankfully, we got the cake made the previous day. It was a rushed decorating job late at night, but it turned out OK. Kylen wanted something with two light sabers crossing. Frosted half red with orange highlights to resemble fire (representing the dark side of the force) and the other half a smooth blue. I made the two light sabers out of fondant. At least it tasted good, since we made the cake and frosting from scratch. We always make an extra 9x13 (not decorated, just simply frosted) since a 9" round isn't big enough for 25-30 people. Not much was left!

Suddenly, the lights dimmed, The Imperial March started playing, and Darth Vader (Greg) came out to dual Kylen. We borrowed the costume from my brother, and it's quite realistic. A couple kids were scared, but I think it went pretty well. They even used the force to push eachother back at times. Once defeated, Vader said, "I am your father!" which got lots of laughs. Wish we could take the credit for that idea, but it came from the net, along with many other things!

Finally is was time to open gifts. One of his favorites was a Star Wars cookbook. He loves to prepare food!

At the end, I gave all the kids Galactic Putty and a glow stick. They also got a sheet of scratch stickers. I know, I know. Excessive. It's only once a year, and I like to spoil them. It's so wonderful seeing everyone have a good time!