6 Winters in Wonderland: A Star Wars Birthday Party

We're in recovery mode around here after having 11 wonderful boys (and a couple of great little girls, although most of them napped) running around our backyard this afternoon. Luckily the weather was great, allowing us to be outside most of the time -- an inside party would have been more challenging and there definitely would have been less napping!

Aidan has been hinting ... no, more like suggesting ... no, it really has been out right asking for Star Wars Lego for his birthday for more than a month. There have been many reminders (just in case I forgot). One such occurrence last week went like this:
Aidan: "Mama, did you forget something that I told you?"
Me: (not having any idea what he was going to say) "I must have, will you tell me again?"
Aidan: "I would like Star Wars Lego for my birthday!"
Me: groan

Needless to say, when we decided to have a party, there was no other choice for the theme. So I set to work planning our first real, non-family birthday party. Luckily there were a lot of Star Wars party ideas online (I'll put the links to the ones that I liked best at the end of this post) and we decided to go with a Jedi Training theme.

The wording for our invitation was taken from one of the sites below, so all I had to do was to insert the right names and times into my Print Shop program, add a picture of the Death Star, and voila ...

Now that the tone was set, we geared everything around this theme of our guests being Jedi in training. Each guest was given a name badge when they arrived. Their badges contained 4 empty spots which would be filled when they had completed 4 different trials. Then, and only then, would they become an official Jedi.

The trials started with testing their taste buds. Each child was blindfolded in turn, and given a toothpick with a piece of food on it (previously okayed by a parent, of course). Without touching the food, they had to use the force to guess what it was. With foods like apple, banana, carrot, hot dog, cheese, and grape; we couldn't fool anybody. The force was strong with these guys! (Sorry for the lack of pictures, but with all that was going on, I totally forgot to get out my camera!)

Having all passed the first trial, we moved on to testing their hearing. I played a number of sound effects (from this website: www.grsites.com/archive/sounds) and had the boys guess. They got them all right, proving that boys can hear just fine when they want to!

Moving on to trial 3, the boys had to construct their own light sabers, after all you can't be a real Jedi without a light saber! We hit a minor snag, when we discovered that 11 boys of various ages and abilities all trying to assemble their weapon, while attacking their neighbour, and defending themselves against their other neighbour can be a bit chaotic! Well, they all got done, nobody got hurt and they seemed to be a hit -- literally!

Moving on the the 4th and final trial, the boys had to run through our obstacle course doing things like running with Yoda, crossing a bridge, walking on the balance beam, the Millennium Falcon walk, and destroying the Death Star -- all while carrying their light saber! (We finally remembered to get out the camera -- thanks Dada!)

Aidan, the birthday boy, leaping into battle!

Boys, boys, everywhere!

Some battles have broken out on the course.

Finally, time to recharge with some Star Wars inspired food. The Wookie Cookies were a big hit along with the Chewbacca Chips, Han Solo Salsa and Darth Vader Dip. To quench the Jedi's thirst, we served Yoda Soda (white grape juice with green food colouring!). And of course, what is a birthday party without cake? Death Star cake with 7 candles and many voices singing "Happy Birthday".