Photo Shoot

Every year at Christmas time I take a picture of the kids to send out with the cards.  Truth be told, I usually have to take many pictures in order to find one where everyone is looking in the right direction, eyes all open, mouths all closed, and everyone is looking relatively happy -- an adventure that gets harder and harder with each additional child.  What a job!  I have toyed with the idea of having them done professionally, but have never made the plunge ... until now! 

Heather Rushton of Twin Bridges Photo met us in Hall's Harbour on a beautiful Saturday morning and courageously took on the task of trying to get the perfect family photo.  We had decided that we didn't want anything formal, so Heather followed us around snapping shots where she liked and making a few suggestions.  When the boys discovered that Star Wars was one of her favourite movies, she immediately had three new fans.  She changed the traditional smile inducing "cheeeeese!" to "EEEEEwok" and  "General Grieeeeeevous".  They were so impressed that she knew who these characters were and that she could join in their conversations.  We had a great time playing around, and occasionally looking up for a picture, and Heather was a lot of fun to work with.  Climbing around on the rocks at the beach and talking about Star Wars on a sunny Saturday morning; what could be better than that?

Take a look at some of the great pictures from that morning, and act surprised when you get your Christmas card this year!

All photos by Twin Bridges Photo

Thanks Heather!  To take a look at some of Heather's other work, check out her website:  www.twinbridgesphoto.com

May The 4th Be With You!

After the Star Wars birthday last week, I was ready to put George Lucas and his empire out of my mind for a while.  But when I discovered this morning that today was "Star Wars Day" (really, I'm not making it up:  "May the 4th (force) be with you" ... this cracks me up!), I decided a change of plans was necessary.

Since there is already plenty of Star Wars talk and play in our days, we were set in that regard.  Our meals, however needed a little ... (insert appropriate Star Wars pun here).  After a little research, I discovered that, not only is this day not a new celebration (there are references dating as far back as 1979, so I guess that it's only me that has been living in a galaxy far, far away), but there were tons of Star Wars inspired food ideas out there.  There are even Star Wars cookbooks!  Most of the ideas that I found, although really cool, were a little too involved for me, so this was our version.  (Check out www.justjennrecipes.com/starwarsday/2011/05/04/ to see the more involved ideas that inspired us!)

Han-burgers,  Vader veggies & Chewbacca chips

Luckily, there was still plenty of Death Star birthday cake left over.

But, my favourite was Han Solo frozen in Carbonite Jell-o.  (Since Lego floats, I had to let the Jell-o set a bit first, then push the figure to the bottom, so the surface of the carbonite is a little disturbed.)

Happy Star Wars day to all.  Maybe tomorrow will be a Star Wars free day, but probably not!

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".

All in all a great success.  I had a lot of fun with the planning and I think that all the newly trained Jedi went home tired and happy! 

p.s. here are the sites that I used for ideas and inspiration:

http://www.kids-birthday-party-guide.com/star-wars-birthday-party.html
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/432075/how_to_produce_a_homemade_star_wars.html?cat=7 (I especially liked that this one made many cost efficient suggestions!)

Star Wars Hair Cuts

It was time to get the hairs cut again.  I have tried to cut the boys hair myself (Dada won't let me anywhere near his hair with scissors -- I'm not that bad!), and although the boys couldn't care less about the uneven results, it's a job that I usually leave to the professional.  Thinking that they might like to have some say in the end result, I asked what kind of haircut they would like.  "Star Wars!" was the reply.  Silly me, that is the answer to every question these days (*sigh*).

Being a little uncertain what a S.W. haircut looked like (and praying it looked nothing like a Wookie), I asked for some clarification.  They ran for their Lego magazines and pointed to the figures with helmet-like hair.  As gently as possible, I suggested that these pictures might not be the best examples of what they were looking for.  They thought for a minute, then went in search of other visual representations for their chosen styles.  We ended up Google-ing "Star Wars hair styles" and when tons of images came up, I got the look that said "see Mama, how could you not have known what we were talking about!"

Luckily, our hair dresser has a good imagination, lots of patience and loves boys.  She enthusiastically looked at the pictures they picked out and started telling them how they could use gel to get their hair to look exactly like the pictures.  The boys were super excited -- "finally, someone who understands what we're talking about!"

Owen picked Anakin Skywalker as a young boy.  It looks just like the bowl cut that my Mom used to give me!  I could do that, I thought, but then it wouldn't have been a S.W. haircut.  So I bit my tongue and only suggested that it be a bit less bowl-like.

Owen's inspiration ...

... and this is Owen ... oops, I mean our Anakin ... amazing resemblance, right?

The older boys, both chose an older version of Anakin Skywalker.  I think that it was the spiky hair that they really liked and the cool light saber, of course.  It's funny that the picture they picked shows very little of his hair!  Anyway, here is their inspiration picture ...

... and here is Anakin #2 (a.k.a. Aidan).  He decided that he didn't like the spiky look as much, so he flattened most of it down, but very Anakin-like nonetheless.

  

... and Anakin #3, or Isaac as we like to call him ... ready for battle!

The boys were very pleased with the results.  I guess that I better stock up on gel!  

Thanks Margie for being a good sport and your enthusiasm about it all -- we couldn't have done it without you!

A Meteor Shower

Ever have one of those days, where at the end you struggle to remember the good things that happened?  You know that there must have been at least one or two, but they get squashed by the numerous other things that maybe weren't so great.  Today was one of those days at our house.  Now, I know that I complain occasionally, but I really try to stick to the positive and remember the highlights of the day -- and Fridays are dedicated to positive things.  Anyway, all I'm saying is that if I get a little side tracked today, please forgive me.

With the recent exposure to Star Wars at our house, everybody now carries a lightsaber (or "light saver" as Owen calls it), flies around the house in an x-wing fighter, is on the look out for Darth Vader (or wants to be Darth Vader), and wants to befriend a Wookie -- and Dada thought that my hair in the shower drain was bad!  So, of course, space talk is constant.  Today, the talk was about meteors, so we decided to get out our space book and see what we could find out.

Turns out there was a whole chapter about meteors, meteorites and meteoroids -- a short chapter with lots of fun facts -- which included an easy experiment.  Most of the chapters include some sort of experiment or hands on activity using common materials, which is part of the reason that we chose this book.  So we played with meteorites in our living room!  Some flour, a little cocoa, a bucket and some marbles and presto, you can see how meteorites impact the earth!  It turned out to be great entertainment too.

The marbles actually made very impressive craters.  The hard part was getting the marble out without damaging the crater too much.  Then we had to try again and again and again and again ... you get the picture.

Then we had to see what would happen if we dropped them from different heights again and again and again ... well, you know how it goes.

Everybody was interested in the results!  Who says science can't be fun?  The boys are now eagerly awaiting the next meteor shower, while looking for meteorites and avoiding meteoroids (and blasts from the Death Star) as they fly around the house!