May the Third Be With You

 My Annalee Saphira is six years old!  She has always been tall for her age and she was definitely too big for her little bike.  I found this one second-hand and she was thrilled.  She was especially excited about the hand-brake and the kickstand.  Because her last bike had training wheels it didn't have a kickstand and she had to lay it on the ground.

We had her party the Saturday after her birthday.  For MONTHS she went all over the board with ideas for a theme for her birthday: My Little Pony, Dora, Blue's Clues, Princesses, Tea Party, etc.  Finally, I gave her a date she had to decide by.  We had recently gone to the planetarium and so she decided on Space!  I didn't know what I was going to do for a space party, but then brilliance struck me. Star Wars!  Using my Jedi mind tricks I convinced her that what she really wanted was a Star Wars party.  She was pretty excited.  Of course, she sometimes gets serious when posing for pictures, so that's what happened here.  It was sure nice having all of Nathan's Star Wars junk--uh, I mean, collectibles around to decorate with!

I completely stink at deciding how many kids to invite.  I had this problem with Annalee's 4th birthday too.  The thing is, at this age kids don't have a small group of close friends.  One kid is pretty much their friend as much as any other.  So if you invite one child from their church class, you have to invite them all!  And what about dance class?  The neighborhood?  Don't even get me started on school!  In the end, we had a list of 16 kids.  I thought for sure that half of them wouldn't come.  Thirteen of them came!  With Annalee and Vander that was 15.  I sent Bellana to a friend's house so she wouldn't get trampled and asked a teenage friend, MacKenzy, to help with the party.  She is a Star Wars fan too!

We had a system going.  Nathan met the kids at the door and fitted them with a Jedi outfit and let them choose a light saber.  He wrote their name on the bottom of the light saber and then sent them to me and MacKenzy to "construct their light saber" as every good Jedi must.  I had precut pieces of black electrical tape stuck to wax paper for them to put on their light saber however they wanted to.  Nathan was lightning-fast with the kids at the door--he sent them to us faster than we could get them seated! 

 The kids started a really good light saber duel inside, but soon it became crazy and we sent them to the back to try to keep balloons up in the air with their light sabers.  There was a slight breeze that kept sending the balloons over the fence or into the weeds to pop.  They still had fun, though!

I had measured Annalee to find that a small tunic needed to be 12 inches wide and 45 inches long.  A quick V cut in the middle made an instant tunic.  I bought 6 yards of fabric at $1.50 a yard on the clearance table at Walmart, enough for 18 kids.  (I could have bought only 5 yards but we didn't know for sure that someone who hadn't RSVP'd wouldn't show up.) So the fabric cost $9 plus $1 for the twine to tie around their waist.  I got a spool of it at the dollar store.  I got the pool noodles from Walmart at first but then found them cheaper at the dollar store.  As I was returning them to Walmart the gal said, "The ones from the dollar store will fall apart."  I said, "They only have to last for an hour and a half!"  I cut them in half and added duct tape.  So for $8 I got 16 light sabers.

 Keeping the balloons in the air.

I had to get the seating set up for 15 kids and get the cake ready, so Nathan kept the kids busy outside with a game of Droid, Droid, Sith (Duck, Duck, Goose) and then some light saber training, like they do at Disneyland.

Soon it became a Get Nathan Free-for-all!  He did a pretty good job holding them off with two light sabers!

Nathan was so fun during the party, keeping the kids entertained and never complaining about how much work it was.  I love to watch him play with kids.  Seeing him play with his nieces and nephews was when I fell in love!

I was pretty proud of the cakes.  Annalee and Vander's action figures were perfect cake toppers.  I love how the light side cake is like a lame office cake, celebrating your number of years with the company or something, hahahaha!  Each kid got two pieces of cake, whichever kind they wanted.  Surprisingly, a lot of them wanted "vanilla cake", as they called it.

Next, we did presents.  I immediately realized that we should have gone over gift etiquette with Annalee before the party, like saying "thank you" and trying to act like you like the gift even if it's not your favorite.  But since most of the kids didn't know what their mom had wrapped anyway, none of them cared. 

 They just wanted Annalee to keep opening presents so they could see what she'd gotten!  Then they wanted to play with them, of course, but I averted that potential fight by pointing out that their parents were going to be there in 5 minutes and we still hadn't done the piñata!

Some of them really got into it!  After Vander got hit in the face we decided to open it by pulling the strings on the bottom.  The very first string opened it!

Every kid got a ton of candy. (I had stocked up on the day after Easter clearance.)

Nathan did a great job on the piñata.  It was a purple flower had bought it 10 months ago for $4 because it was faded.  Nathan covered it with tin foil and then drew The Empire's sign on one side and The Rebellion's sign on the other.

The party was on May 3rd, which I thought was funny, because the next day was May the 4th, as in, May the Fourth be With You.  Success!